#straight people. that's who. guys who are just guys.

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

#Dungeon Meshi #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Dungeon Meshi meta #I'm putting it in the tag. I'm making you look at it. #if you come into my inbox to bitch about this just know that people used to send me b*heading videos in there for similar racist reasons #so I will not be impressed #I'm in a fucking time loop someone get me out!!!! #musings with Dea

[januaryembrs]

WAS I FOOLIN MYSELF | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [5]

Description: The THREE times you can't have him no matter how much you want to

Length. 15.2k

warnings: angst, spencer's addiction mentioned, gory cm cases (medical trauma, removing limbs, human marionettes etc) explosion, broken arm and surgery, slight lemon at end but not actually written just described aftermath, Maeve arc (I'm so sorry), guns, almost dying, blood, general cm warnings, anything else let me know!

previous chpt | next chpt

Authors note; I will edit in the morning I just really wanted you all to have the next chapter as promised!!

'I'ma strike these matches, never had control,

I'm ready to let go, no, was I fooling myself?'

The one with the wedding

JJ’s ears were ringing, a high pitched whine like a radio skipping between stations searching for a signal, and she felt the hard concrete against her milky skin before the throbbing in her forehead hit. 

“JJ, are you alright?” There were hands at her shoulders, patting her down for fractures, not wanting to move her if her spine had been hit, and it wasn’t until she rolled herself over, eyes frantic and in shock that she saw Morgan.

“Where’s Will? Where’s Bugsy?” She asked, the words blurring into one word. Her legs were struggling to a stand before she could think too much about the concussion she almost definitely had, giving Morgan a quick once over, “Did they get out of there?” 

But she hadn’t seen any movement before the blast had shot them back ten feet to the floor. Had only seen the back of the youngest Prentiss woman’s head as she rushed into the building to get emergency medical care to her partner. 

“Where’s Emily?” Morgan added, and the two of them realised they were missing perhaps three of the most important people to them with no sign of life from any of them. 

It didn’t take much for JJ to take off bolting into where the bank’s entrance had crumbled to the floor, where the dust hadn’t even settled and they didn’t know whether there was a second set of bombs waiting for them. They didn’t know anything. 

And it was for that reason JJ dipped straight into the wall of smoke, hand tight on her gun as she went to look for survivors.

Morgan and Hotch were hot on her heels, a dozen firefighters and medical in tow, a similar face of dread in their expressions. 

Aaron’s heart was in his throat when they entered the building, the west facing wall almost entirely in smithereens on the floor. The dust choked him the second they ran in, and he coughed before he could even get a word out, hand flying over his mouth to try give himself some kind of filter to the air. 

“Bugsy!” He yelled as loud as his dry vocal chords would allow, “Bugsy, give us a signal,” 

Nothing. Nothing but the sound of JJ and Morgan screaming for Will and Emily just as loud. And even to that they received no answer. 

It wasn’t until they got close enough to the rubble and began seeing the bodies did Aaron start to fear the worst. He called her name again, her real name, splitting up from the rest of his team because it was no longer a mission for the UnSubs, it was now a search and rescue. 

He crouched to press his fingers against a woman’s throat, stomach flipping when he felt no pulse beneath them, before he moved onto another one, his eyes darting between the chunks of brick and ceiling to see if he could spot anything that looked like an FBI jacket. 

It wasn’t until he found one of the men donned in a SWAT uniform, his gun long since dropped to the tiles that he knew he must be close. It was one of the guys who had gone into the buildings seconds before her.

He felt for a familiar thrum of a heartbeat, his breath thick in his throat when he managed to get a slow and steady thump, and he immediately began signalling for medical attention.

Paramedics came running over with a stretcher between them, but Aaron wasn’t finished, Not until he saw her. 

He dodged around the large chunk of stone that piled in the centre of the room, cringing when he saw a splatter of blood on the tiles in front of him, and it was only when he saw a hand splayed out on the floor did his heart truly stop. 

His cold eyes were wet with fear as he traced the hand up its arm, the familiar blue he wore himself ripped to shreds, the skin beneath it broken and the bone snapped clean in two. He could barely make out the three letters, F. B. I. that were so covered in blood and dirt it almost matched the navy, before he got the pillow of familiar hair matted against a head that faced away from him. 

But it was her. There was no doubt about it. 

He thinks he said her name, but it might just have been a sob, because he fell to his knees quickly, scrambling to get to her face to see if she would respond to him at all. 

“Bugsy, I need you to wake up,” He ordered, though it sounded like a hiss of pain, his rough hands finding her young face, desperate for any movement behind her eyelids, “Come on, sweetheart, just tell me what day it is,”

Years of training on what to do in a crisis and the correct first aid to give to someone unresponsive flew out of his brain, leaving behind bits and pieces like getting her to talk to see whether she had severed anything in that big, amazing brain of hers that had so much promise. 

He leaned his ear down next to her nose, looking down the front of her chest to check for any signs of breath.

This was too similar to what Foyet had done with Haley, like a horrid deja-vu he wouldn’t wish even on their worst UnSub. He had been too slow, too stubborn, too stupid to stop her from getting hurt. He didn’t know what her blood on his hands would feel like, didn’t know if he would ever sleep again knowing he had gotten her killed. 

Aaron’s stomach flipped when he saw her ribs rising slowly beneath her vest, her breaths cold against his earlobe. 

“Guess it’s my turn to come back from the dead, huh?” A croaking whisper came softly, and he flicked his head around so fast he thought he might have whiplash. 

But her eyes were open, squinting and tired, and he cursed the fact he had only then noticed the cut on her forehead, red ichor pumping fast and restlessly down the side of her face. 

He gave a breathless laugh, though it pained his own ringing ear to do so, stroking gently down her face with the same care he would put Jack to bed with. 

“Gotcha,” She smiled up at him sheepishly, her brows furrowing when she seemed then to notice the tears rolling down the tip of his nose, “Aaron Hotchner crying over me, are pigs flying today?” 

He chuckled wetly, and his eyes were the warmest brown she’d ever seen them when he looked down at her. He turned his attention away for a second to call over medical, his eyes landing on Emily who was also frantically scanning the wreckage for her sister and giving her a sign too. 

“You gave us quite a scare there,” Aaron said softly, because judging by the bump on her head, and the way blood was pooling in her ears, he guessed her eardrums had been damaged in the blast. Emily was over to them in seconds, looking dishevelled herself, and she gasped into her hands when she saw her sister’s fragile form. 

“Bugsy- oh my god your arm,” 

The girl’s face dropped, eyes widening as she tried turning to see the damage but Aaron was faster, quickly blocking her view of the mangled mess of skin with hand over the side of her head. 

“What’s wrong with my arm?” She asked, and he saw nothing but his son with a scraped knee in her eyes when she looked up at him vulnerably. Emily fell to her knees next to her, taking over from Aaron by stroking her sister’s cheek, because if her adrenaline rose too much, then the numbness of the shock would wear off and she would feel it all. 

“I think it’s broken, but the paramedics are going to fix you right up, I promise,” Emily cooed, though she felt herself go a little white at the sight of her sister’s bones so mangled and in pieces. 

Aaron looked up when he heard Morgan calling his name, spotting the paramedic team navigating their way back to where the three of them sat, and he waved his hand up to let them know where they were. 

He bit his tongue, looking down at where Bugsy was clearly starting to wake up more to just how bad of a state she was in, and she watched him woefully be torn between helping the rest of his team or staying with her. 

“You guys can go, I’m no use on the case anymore,” She said, despite the fact she was terrified of what might happen if they left her alone. 

“Are you crazy, absolutely not-,” Emily was cut off when two EMT’s rounded the block of concrete and brick that had missed her by a few inches when it had fallen, a stretcher and med packs at their side. 

“Good to see you’re responsive, Agent Prentiss,” One of the EMT’s commented, opening his case up to retrieve a neck brace and a splint for her arm before they could move her to the stretcher. Bugsy smiled up at them, though she knew it looked like a wince, taking one more look at her sister and then at Hotch, both of whom looked stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

“Go, I’m serious. Will needs you,” She said, feeling Emily squeeze her hand gently, pressing a kiss to her hairline, looking down at her in worry, “Go, Emily. Just bring me pudding when you get to the hospital- no Jello-”

She hissed when the paramedics slipped the brace over her shoulders, strapping her head into place to stop her doing any more damage to her spine. 

Emily nodded, and her and Hotch took off round the corner to where Morgan was calling them, and Bugsy let the paramedics fuss over her some more, taking the pain killers without a second glance once she realised just how broken Emily had meant when she saw her arm. 

It got hazy from there, until she felt the sun on her face and she felt a hand grab her good side. Her eyes were rolling with the fact she was fighting off sleep, or maybe she really had lost more blood than she thought. Either way she managed to flick her eyes open enough to meet hazel hues, distraught and worried, heard a familiar voice calling her name sadly, but she was too far gone by then. Her eyes shut despite her fighting them, and she was wheeled into the back of an ambulance by the friendly EMT’s, and the doors shut before her medicated brain could even recognise the voice as Spencer. 

She was asleep before she could protest to it. 

–

The air smelled like bleach- no, like floor cleaner had been drenched all around her, like she had been dropped into a janitor's closet and spilled every bottle over on her way in. 

Her body felt stiff, and she frowned when she felt cramp in her fingertips, pain shooting up her wrist the second she tried to move them. Her eyes opened blearily, and she groaned in protest at the overhead white lights, burying her face into the scratchy sheet that covered her body. Only then did it click that she was in a hospital.

She moaned again when she tried moving her legs and her whole body protested, her bare legs rubbing against the paper like material in a way that made her cringe, and she felt only the hospital gown and underwear on her body.

“You’re awake,” The voice startled her, and she realised she hadn’t even heard the door open in her haze. Spencer stood in the doorway, three big bunches of flowers and two teddies in his arms, one of them holding a sign saying ‘You’re bear-y brave!’

What got her was the look of worry in his eyes when he took her in head to toe, his eyes lingering on the bright pink cast on her lower arm up past her elbow. 

She grimaced, following his eyes to the horror, “Sexy,”

He rushed over to her bedside, all but throwing the flowers and cuddly toys on the space where her legs weren’t curled up under the sheets, pausing for a second to assess the situation. 

“Spencer, you didn’t need to get me all of this,” Bugsy said, her cheeks warming when she saw her favourite flowers right at the end of the bed, blooming right in her direction, “Is everyone okay? Is Will okay?” 

He nodded, but had yet to say anything, and he fiddled with his fingertips the way he did when he was struggling to get his point across properly. She reached out with her functioning hand to take them in hers, because she hated when he wouldn’t talk to her. 

“Spencer, I’m fine, it’s just a broken arm, right?” The woman asked, trying to shuffle herself into a sitting position only to yelp when her side burst into pain. He rushed to put his arm behind her back, to get her to lay back down without putting too much pressure on her sternum, “What the fuck is that? I feel like I got hit by a baseball bat,” 

“That’s what happens when you run blindly into a building without waiting for backup,” Spencer said, an undertone to his words she had never heard from him before, “Two cracked ribs; you’re lucky your lungs are still intact,”

Shit. 

“Anything else?” She asked, a grim look on her face as his expression soured. 

“Almost tore one of your eardrums, moderate concussion. They had to put pins in your arm to fix the fracture, it was transverse before you ask, lacerations to your legs from the glass, and some shrapnel they pulled out while you were in surgery.” Spencer listed, propping a pillow behind her head for her to rest against more comfortably though he still seemed annoyed, “No biggy,”

She paused for a second, watching him like a scolded child, her lips pulling down slightly, “Are you upset with me?” 

He sighed, running a gentle hand over her leg that was covered by the thin sheet, and she felt the sting of cuts on her skin just like he’d said. 

“I’m not annoyed, I could never be annoyed with you; you just-” He huffed, looking up at her sad eyes and feeling his resolve crumbling immediately, “You can’t just throw yourself in the way of danger, you have people who care about you, people who love you,” 

She bristled for a second, looking into her lap and chewing the inside of her lip worriedly, “I just wanted to help Will, I just didn’t want JJ and Henry to lose him the way I thought I lost Emily,”

Spencer’s heart sank, and any telling off he was going to give her for worrying him left him in seconds, and he forgave her embarrassingly fast.

Taking her hand back in his gently and scooching a chair closer to the bed so he could sit with her, he looked up at her with the sweet, puppy eyes she had always loved on him. 

“I know, I know you just wanted to help,” He hushed her, using his other hand to stroke her hair behind her ear, “Next time just… wait for your lucky charm, remember?” 

She smiled brilliantly, and he almost could ignore the butterfly stitching on her forehead or the bright pink cast on her arm, or the fact her clothes had looked like a crime scene when they’d shoved them in a biohazard bag with how soaked in blood they were.

Her pretty tweed pants and white shirt she’d bought especially for his Dr Who convention to make him happy, wasted. 

“Where’s all my clothes?” She asked, like she’d read his mind, but then again she had been known to do that. 

He pouted, because he knew she’d hate the answer, “Emily said they had to cut it off to get you into the brace properly; they ran some scans first to make sure your spine was intact.”

“All of my clothes?” She baulked, and he knew she was upset before she could even say so he stroked his thumb over her hand for good measure, “But my lovely shirt- and the pants they were so cute, weren’t they?”

“They were so cute,” He agreed, even though he thought she looked good in everything.

“And- oh my god they got my bra too?” She asked, wide eyed and horrified like she hadn’t had a building dropped on her, like this was the worst part of her day. Spencer opened his mouth to say something, but he thought better than to tell her it wasn’t a big deal and he was sure Pen could take her shopping for new ones even if the thought of it made his cheeks flush red, “They got the best one, Spencer, that was my best one with the little bows and the lace at the back- fuck,” 

She huffed, rubbing her temple in annoyance seemingly completely unaware of the situation she’d put him in, when JJ slowly entered the room, looking more tired and stressed than she had in months, but there was a little glow in her face that washed it all away. 

“JJ, they cut off my favourite bra,” Bugsy huffed, holding an arm out for the woman who came to stand at the opposite side of the bed to Spencer, and JJ quickly leaned in to hug her close, Bugsy’s head pressing against her stomach, “It was the only one that fit perfectly, now look at me. Wasted.”

“I can get you another one on Monday after Will and I have stopped by the courthouse,” JJ said, her eyes alight with mischief like she had a secret, and Bugsy frowned, looking up at the woman. 

“Why on Earth would Will be buying me- Wait,” The girl stopped, her breath catching in her throat as she took in JJ’s sheepish blush and girlish grin, “Courthouse? You’re getting married!” 

JJ’s smile was beaming, and Bugsy yanked her with her one good arm into a side hug, just about as much as her ribcage would allow, and Spencer’s face lit up equally, though he was quick to usher Bugsy back into a resting position so as not to jostle her stitches. 

Spencer drove her home that night after she got discharged, and he helped her get settled back into her own bed, her face still a little bitter at the fact her favourite underwear set was “totally mismatched now”; her words, not his. He put a documentary on for the two of them until it was time for some more of the painkillers the doctors had sent her packing with, and she fell asleep pretty quickly after that. 

He watched her breaths rising and falling slowly, the sight of her on that stretcher being wheeled into the back of the ambulance flashing in his head like a horror motion picture. Her face had been soaked in blood, her neck in a brace that looked tight enough to crush her, her eyes were weary and dim from what he knew now was the sedative effects of the painkillers. 

He’d almost brought up the fact he’d found a geneticist willing to take a look at his MRI scans to help his migraines; almost brought up that she had finally got back to him with results and a plan of vitamins and dietary changes he could make to help ease his flare ups. 

Spencer almost mentioned it, but he fell asleep listening to Bugsy’s breaths, checking for irregularities, before he had the chance to. 

–

Hot pink did not match ditsy blue whatsoever, she had quickly decided, but the bluebell, floral dress was the only thing she owned long enough to cover the scratches on her legs and arms, and hid the majority of the hideous cast that weighed down her arm. 

Spencer had encouraged her not to come to JJ’s ‘engagement party’, had encouraged her to stay at home and sleep; promised her he would rustle up the best chicken soup she’d ever tasted if it meant she would stay on the couch and rest her marred body. 

But then Rossi had said he just simply couldn’t let a nice occasion go to waste. A few phone calls later, a drop in the ocean of his wealth and within two days the yard to his stately manor had been turned into a ceremony, the whole arch, pews and altar style. 

“You should worry so much, you look lovely,” Spencer softly chided her when he saw her yanking her sleeve further down her arm, trying to cover the hard shell that protected her radius while it healed. She did, despite the fact he had to help her do her eyeliner because she could only do it with her right hand, or that there was still a nasty cut on her forehead that was scabbing up. 

She was still beautiful as ever to him. And it made Spencer’s chest sore. 

It felt like something had cracked between them since that night she had been dropped to his, her pupils wide as dinner plates, her inhibitions lowered to zero, and had pecked his lips like it wouldn’t tear him up inside to have her so close to him knowing it was everything he had ever wanted. 

He knew if she ever kissed him again he couldn’t keep it in anymore, couldn’t stay in this limbo they had found themselves in where all he could think about was how she smelled when she wore his clothes, a mix of his laundry and her skin together, something he’d found himself purely saturated in since she first lived with him after Emily’s funeral. He loved the way her eyes seemed soft and mellow when she looked at him, loved the way his stomach seemed warm and fuzzy when she held his hand, and he knew it wasn’t in the same way it normally was with other people, when he was worried about how many germs they were spreading to him or if they’d had all their shots or if he’d remembered to pack hand sanitizer. His stomach felt funny, and his skin felt sweaty, and his head got scrambled, and it was somehow good. 

He would do anything for her, anything she ever wanted from him and it was hers. 

He knew it way surpassed friendship. It felt like she was his girlfriend, which was absurd because he had never asked her to be. Or maybe it was just him trying to wish it into existence, because he knew he would never ask her. She was too good for him, too good for this world let alone a scrawny, know-it-all like him. 

She simpered under his words, looking at him with tired eyes, though he could tell she still yearned to fluff up her hair or fix her dress because she felt like a polished turd right now. 

“Thankyou,” She said quietly, immediately spotting a waiter carrying a tray of champagne passing by and reaching for a little flute, “Want one? Thank you,”

Spencer shook his head politely, quickly spotting Emily and Morgan moving into the garden with Hotch and Beth not far behind them.

“I’ll be right back, just wait here a second,” He said, gently stroking over her spine with his warm hands, before he darted towards the group. Jack took off running towards Bugsy the second he saw her, and Spencer heard the small ‘ooft’ leave the woman as he collided with her stomach and nearly winded her. He was getting bigger by the minute, Spencer swore. 

“Don’t you look dashing, boy wonder,” Morgan teased, flicking his finger under the lapel of Spencer’s two piece suit that Bugsy had told him more than once fit him like a glove, “Someone to impress?” 

Spencer blanched, his eyes shooting to Emily who seemed to hide a smile, because his feelings for her sister were about as plain to see as the moon that coated their evening in a blue glow. Hotch looked over the younger agent’s shoulder, to where his son was throwing cents into Rossi’s fountain with Bugsy and making wishes, his eyes quickly falling to the pink cast around her wrist, and his face hardened. 

“How is she?” He asked, lips pursed. 

They had seen her in turns at the hospital, but most of the time she had been extremely out of it, Hotch had managed to catch her right before they took her into surgery for her arm, and even then he’d been ushered right back out of the room because they were getting her prepped to be scrubbed down. 

Spencer bit his lip for a second, glancing over his shoulder at Bugsy fishing through her purse with her one good hand for more nickels, before he looked back at them, “She doesn’t want anyone to make a big deal about it, and don’t bring up her arm or her forehead, she’s a little delicate-”

He was cut off by Penelope squealing behind them, and they turned in unison to see the blonde woman cupping Bugsy’s face, checking herself for more abrasions, stroking over the younger girl’s shoulders as she simply allowed herself to be ragged like a doll. 

Because it was Penny. And Penny always meant well. 

Spencer flustered worriedly, and Morgan chuckled behind him, wrapping an arm over the kid’s shoulder. 

“Can’t protect her forever, lover boy,” Derek said, patting him before he let go, taking Emily’s elbow and walking over to where they were serving hors d'oeuvres. 

Spencer knew that, knew she could handle herself just fine without him. That was what worried him the most. 

–

JJ looked beautiful in her mother’s wedding dress. Bugsy welled up with happiness, true happiness when she saw her friend walking down the aisle with her son, a spitting image of her, in one hand, her father’s arm in the other. 

Will looked besotted, but then again he always did when he looked at JJ. 

Bugsy felt the love in the entire yard as they said their vows, kissing each other without restraint under the floral arch as Henry covered his eyes with a little giggle and an ‘eww!’ which made everyone chuckle. 

The violinists began playing soft hymns as the couple had their first dance, and Henry migrated towards the woman with the pink hand and the sapphire dress. 

“Buggy,” He tugged on the bottom of her skirts, huge, sky-blue eyes blinking up at her behind a mop of blonde furls. “Buggy, your hand!” 

She knelt down to hear the three year old a little better, and immediately tiny fingers trailed over her wrist worriedly. 

“Your hand, it’s hurt,” He said, and Spencer crouched to comfort the boy who he still remembered holding hours after he was born.

“I know, I hurt myself at work,” She said, letting him run his fingers over the pink shelling, his eyes wide and confused about the new material, “But Mommy saved me, and she saved your Daddy, and she saved you, didn’t she? Isn’t she so brave,” 

Henry smiled, like all his thoughts of his mommy being Wonder Woman were true, and he nodded, stepped towards Bugsy while making grabby hands for her neck, “Up,”  

Spencer was about to protest, because he didn’t want her to push herself, but he knew she could never say no to kids, especially ones as cute as the boys. 

“Alright, big man, up we go,” She put her good arm under his bottom, Spencer holding under her shoulder to help her into a stand with a repressed grunt, “Jesus, what did you eat for breakfast today. You really are a big boy, Henry,” 

She put him on her hip, shoving off the way it stung her superficial cuts because Henry seemed happy, grabbing a section of her hair in his tiny hands, and stroking her head gently in what Bugsy guessed was the way JJ stroked his when he was unwell. 

“Mommy says you have to have a magic kiss when you get hurt,” Henry babbled, and she smiled, her cheeks hurting because the kid was just sweet enough to eat. 

“Oh, yeah? Is mommy magic then?” She entertained, feeling Spencer still a ghost over her shoulder in case she started struggling to hold the pre-schooler. His godson laughed like she told a joke, shaking his golden locks as he answered. 

“No, Buggy,” He giggled, patting her cheek as she scrunched eyes shut with a smile, “You get a magic kiss when you get fixed. Like this,” He leaned in, leaving a big wet smooch on her cheek that made her giggle, tightening her hold on him with a shiny jaw. Henry turned to where Spencer watched them with a dazzling smile, pointing up at him, little fingernails waving in his face, “Spencer’s turn,”

His godfather faltered, his cheeks turning red and Bugsy looked between the two of them, amused. 

“I can’t, I’m afraid Henry. I’m not magic like you and mommy,” Spencer replied, trying to brush the boy off as kindly as possible. Henry’s face frowned, because he had watched Uncle Spencer pull a coin out of his ear not even half an hour ago and so that statement seemed ridiculous. 

“You have to! You have to give her magic kisses or she won't get better!” Henry ordered, trying to grab Spencer’s bow tie with vigour, “You have to!” 

“Alright, alright,” Spencer agreed, his hands shooting up in surrender, “I’ll give her magic kisses,”

Bugsy looked at him with a heart stopping smile. She looked soft like butter, syrupy and warm as pudding. The moonlight washed her pupils with something like a cartoonish twinkle, and he hoped his forest eyes didn’t turn to two love hearts the way he felt like it did. 

He raised one of his hands to her cheek, the same one Henry just kissed, holding her still. She was cool in the night air, or maybe his hand was just too warm because he was so nervous. He hoped he wasn’t shaking, but her jaw fit into the palm of his hand like it was always meant to be there. 

He dipped his head in to give her a long, delicate kiss to her cheek, running a thumb down the apple of her cheek. 

He pulled away from her, and they exchanged a look, something in her eyes he had rarely seen before. Figuring it was discomfort, or maybe just the light playing tricks on him, he stepped away, and Henry was quickly distracted by a frog hopping through the mildewed grass, and he set Bugsy on the task to help him catch it. 

Spencer busied himself talking to Will and Derek in the hopes his heart would calm down any minute soon, but he had quickly felt himself becoming somewhat addicted to the feel of her skin beneath his lips. He wondered lewdly if the rest of her would feel so soft as her cheek had, and immediately scolded himself for it. 

The thought haunted him for the rest of the night.

-

Penny twirled her around by her good arm, and the two of them giggled like school girls under the fairy-light woven pergola, the string quartet finishing off the fast paced song they had switched up the mood with. The blonde was careful about not jostling the woman too much, she could already feel Spencer and Emily’s worried looks from where they sat together at a table, nursing their drinks mid chat. 

But whether it was the fact she had been cooped up for days on bed rest orders (Spencer’s, not the Doctor’s, though he’d argued that was the same thing,) or that last morphine patch had really given her a kick up the behind, but she seemed to be hiding the pain well. 

JJ would only have one wedding, she’d argued with Spencer, she could have a hundred days in bed, but there would only be one night like this one; when they were all together, safe and happy, when there was enough palpable love in the air that fell over everyone's shoulders like a warm hug. He’d grumbled that he was usually the optimistic one and zipped up her dress for her with shaky fingers anyway. 

Before Penny could spin her round even one more time, a figure appeared two tower over the blonde, and a voice cut in between them politely.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me lead the next dance, I think Reid and Prentiss might just tackle you if you shake her up anymore,” Aaron’s voice was soft, inviting with the one and a half beers he’d had edging at his tone, almost teasing in a way so rare for a man so stern. 

Penelope looked over Bugsy’s shoulder to indeed see the woman’s two guard dogs watching her like a hawk, Bug’s already opened purse on Spencer lap where her emergency painkillers were. 

“Oh god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spencer frown like that, it’s like watching a puppy resource guarding,” Penelope faltered, looking the woman head to toe as if she was being held against her will to dance by the blonde, “You’re not hurt or anything- you’d tell me if you were hurt, wouldn’t you?”

Bugsy chuckled, throwing her good arm over the woman’s shoulder, “Relax, they’re both worry warts. I’m having fun, Pen. I think Hotch just wanted a turn with the ugly barbie,”

Against Penelope’s better judgement, she gave the woman a kiss on the cheek with a sigh of defeat, though she had been so careful not to push her in fear of her cracking another rib, but she had loved seeing Bugsy smile like that again. 

Derek was quick to swoop in to save her, swooping in to steal her for a dance as Aaron gently took Bugsy’s waist and good hand, entirely respectable and gentle in his touch. 

“I’m glad you’re okay, your bell got a little rung in that bank,” Aaron murmured, trying not to fret over the gash on her forehead that had a few butterfly stitches pulling it together. He remembered how frail she’d felt in his arms the last time he’d properly seen her, like a baby bird with its wings snapped in his hands. He was worried he was going to be burying her too, just like he had Emily, just like he had Haley, except he knew for her there wasn’t a catch, an escape route to Paris. There wouldn’t have been a do over.

But she was okay. Broken bones and all. 

She smiled at him, as if to remind him just how alive she was, and he saw how her eyes were bloodshot and tired, as if it was taking all of her energy to keep her head upright. 

“If you knew how many morphine patches are on my butt right now, you’d freak,” She said, and he laughed, because she was always good at getting those from him. Bugsy relaxed in his arms, and he rocked her side to side sweetly, not quite dancing but moving passively to the soft melody the band was playing. 

Maybe it was the fact he wasn’t in work mode, or maybe it was because the night air was cosy and light, or maybe she just weaselled out the guilt that had been stored in his chest for nearly a year, but he let himself look at her with a sad, sepia gaze, and it was like she knew what he was going to say before he said it. 

“I’m-”

“Don’t apologise,” She cut in quickly, her own expression falling into something forlorn, “You have nothing to apologise for, Aaron,”

He took a deep breath through his nose, “I do. That wasn’t right how I treated you. You’re not spoiled.” 

“I can be, sometimes,” She argued defeatedly, but he shook his head before she could add to it, “You were doing what was best to keep Emily safe, it was her I was more mad at than anything. She’s my sister, she should have trusted me, you and JJ didn’t owe me anything.”

“We owed you a better explanation than we gave,” He said, watching her sigh and rest her cheek on his shoulder. He cursed Spencer for allowing her to wear heels in her condition, though he didn’t doubt that the pretty boy had put up just as much fight as he would have seeing her grab the shoes on her way out, “I never meant to hurt you so much. And we do owe you better, we’re a family. Families fight, and they say mean things and they tell white lies sometimes but we love each other, and I only ever wanted to keep everyone safe. Okay?”

She nodded against his blazer material, dropping his hand in the interest of wrapping both her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug, ignoring the dulled ache of her ribcage.

“I love you too,” She murmured, and he gave her a feather-light squeeze back, all too aware of her bones creaking under her skin, “I’m sorry I hit you,”

She let go of him, and he held her hand, the tips of her fingers poking out from beneath her cast that already had Jack’s name scrawled over in black sharpie. 

“I deserved it, I was being cruel,” He said honestly. He hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but the emptiness in her laugh, in the way she’d stormed out, had scared him. He thought even if she lashed out, if she screamed at him or cried that would be better than the silent treatment because at least then he would know where she stood with him. But instead he had driven the knife in deeper, and for that he couldn’t say he blamed her for it, “I’ve had worse, much worse. Maybe you’re not as tough as you think,”

She baulked, and realised he was teasing her, “Maybe we could go round two Monday morning, I bet it would hurt a lot having a hard plaster cast swung at your face,” 

“For me or for you?” She smacked his arm with her good hand, and it made him chuckle again, and soon she was laughing too, resting her head back onto his shoulder comfortably, “I’m glad you’re okay, Bug,”

“Did you not hear where I put those morphine patches? I could paper mache with those bastards,” 

And they danced between chuckles for another half an hour. 

–

“Wait, wait, you’re going to compress her spine,” Derek stopped, Bugsy dipped at his waist where he was supporting her full weight because she’d complained she missed dancing with Penelope. She hated people walking on eggshells around her, and if anyone was going to have fun with her who could still make sure she was safe, it was Derek. 

The woman grinned up at him, Derek’s hands safely around her waist and not pressing on her ribs whatsoever, though she had to admit she was ready for another dose of painkillers after a few hours of dancing between Hotch, then to JJ who had swiftly been taken over by Henry who wanted to be lifted high enough he could hold Bugsy’s hands like he had seen the others doing. David had even entertained her with a very slow three step waltz, until Derek had been her next target because he seemed to be having the most fun whirling Emily around the dance floor. 

“Spencer!” She said and Morgan returned her to full height once he saw Reid’s fretful expression. She pouted, “Spencer, I was having fun,”

“You know what’s fun? Eating cake is fun, drinking water is fun, resting on the couch is fun,” He said, and Morgan was quick to hand the baby Prentiss over to Reid who rifled around his pocket to produce the tablet version of her buprenorphine, “You need more medicine or it’s going to hurt worse in the morning, remember? Getting ahead of the pain?”

She sighed, nodding, and before he could pop two out of the shiny, metal coated tray, she stopped him, “Wait, dance with me first,”

He looked at her incredulously, eyes softening when she stepped closer to him, her hand coming over the top of his to push the pain killers away, “It’s going to hurt more if you don’t get ahead of it now,”

“I know, I know,” She muttered, nodding docilely, “Look, I promise if you just dance with me a little now, I’ll have my meds and take it easy for the rest of the night, no questions asked,”

He looked unconvinced, because she was known to put up a fight when it came to doing something she didn’t want to. 

She sighed, “If I sit down now, I know I won’t be getting back up again for the rest of the night, and I wanted to enjoy myself until I couldn’t anymore,”

Spencer looked at her pleading puppy dog eyes, and broke almost embarrassingly fast, letting her follow his hand into his pocket, putting the drugs away and letting her take his now free hand in his own. 

“I’ll have it known I tried to stop this when this catches up to you and you have to go lay down on Rossi’s spare bed,” He argued back, but felt his stomach flip when she laced her fingers with his, pushing herself closer to him as a means of drawing him out of his grumpy mood. 

“He has more than enough, just dance with me,” She brushed his attitude off, wrapping her plaster-cast over his shoulder. 

He took her waist gently, feeling the plush, softness of her hips and wishing the heat away from his cheeks. She looked divine under the fairy lights, ready to be whisked away by sleep yes, but the sleepy blinks added to her charm, and she was soft and pliant under his touch like a tame cat ready to curl up on his chest.

“I had so much fun,” She said, meeting his adoring gaze, probably because he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her. He nodded, worrying then if his hair was sitting right or if hid bowtie needed straightening. She was a goddess in his arms, the colour of her dress matching her skin beautifully, a few wisps of hair falling over her eyes from where Penny had damn near done the quick step with her. 

She looked like a dream.

“I never thanked you for everything you did for me when Emily was-” She gulped, her eyes suddenly down turned, like she couldn’t admit anything to the hazel of his eyes, not when they looked at her like that. “You were the only thing I had for a very long time, and I never really said how much it all meant to me,”

“You’re my best friend, I’m always going to be there for you,” He said, lovingly stroking a thumb over her skin, his voice tender as this touch, “That’s what friends are for,”

Even though he was sure he’d never felt this way about any of his friends before, even the tiny crush he’d had on JJ for all of two weeks when he’d first started at the BAU didn’t even make a mark on how she got his chest hammering like a jackrabbit. 

Her face flickered with something he couldn’t read, and she nodded, “Right. Friends.” She swallowed heavily. 

She slumped against him, like the wind had been taken out of her, her head on his shoulder, but it felt nothing like when she had danced with Hotch. 

It felt like everything she’d ever wanted was right in her grasp, like the one person who made her feel whole again was pressed against her, stroking down her spine with an affection she could swear blind was nothing like she’d ever felt before. Like the only air she knew how to breathe was filling her lungs, every note of fresh linen, the hair gel he sometimes used to tame his curls, down to the faint smell of his apartment, so filled with books the smell of worn leather and thin paper seeped into his clothes. 

She couldn’t remember who she was before she knew Spencer. She felt like she’d always known him. 

He wasn’t just her friend, he was every bit of her that she wasn’t. Every ugly part of her that had always felt so alone, like loneliness was just ingrained into her since birth that seemed to jump up in a strange feeling of longing and home whenever he was near. 

She let herself revel in his arms as long as she could, because she knew it was so illicit to be feeling so hungry for something she couldn’t have. She knew he was too good for her; she had never deserved any scrap of kindness he gave her. She could be mean, and rude, and loud, and ugly, and spiteful and he was everything she wasn’t. He was kind, and sweet, and gentle, and loving, and he didn’t deserve someone like her; he deserved so much better. 

Bugsy let herself stay against his chest for a while longer, slowly swaying with him under the moonlight as JJ and Will took each other in their arms; a couple that fit together, Bugsy thought, two people who were so right for one another. Who deserved their happiness. 

And so she selfishly let herself pretend she could have him as long as she could, silently dancing together under the pergola, until she agreed to go sit down because she would never admit that the ache in her side had started to seep back in, and he fussed over her some more and she told him he was being silly, but she preened under his affections anyway. 

They’d reached a stalemate, Spencer would have probably called it.

Bugsy knew she shouldn’t want him, but she did. She shouldn’t want him because he was the pretty boy, the sweetheart that sat untainted by everything he’d seen and endured, the one who had jumped and cleared every hurdle life had thrown at him where she had fallen flat. He had gotten better on his own after Hankel; she had crashed and burned and taken nearly everyone with her. He was strong, and she was weak. She shouldn’t want him, it was selfish, but she did. 

Spencer knew he couldn’t have her, because she was beyond anything he had ever dreamed of, beyond his best friend, beyond the girl who kissed him and didn’t ever want to talk about it again. He couldn’t have her because she was still healing, still wounded and vulnerable and rattled from barely recovering her relationship with her sister before she’d had a bank dropped on top of her. It would be wrong, it would be selfish, she would never want some scrawny kid from a shitty home where he was beaten up by girls even smaller than him and wedgied so hard he had to follow the librarian to class. He was a nobody. He couldn’t have her because she deserved so much better, but he wanted her. 

They sat at a stalemate for a few weeks longer, until Emily got a job offer in London, and she asked Bugsy to take an internship at Interpol one of her old associates had sent to her. Twelve weeks learning how international databases worked, even some forensic work for Scotland Yard if she played her cards right. 

And she took it; without much warning she took it, even if not to give herself some breathing space from how much her chest pined to be back in Spencer’s arms she had that night. 

Bugsy headed to London, and didn’t look back. 

2. The one with Maeve

Four Months. Bugsy had been in England for four months. 

At first, they had called regularly, almost every other day, except the days she was just too tired to stay up until two am to call him when he got home. They had spent an hour on the phone at least; she had asked about the team, the cases, if he missed her yet which he always told her to knock it off because of course he missed her, and he had asked about London, and what England was like, and how Emily was doing. 

Until around two months in when her schedule had changed to night shifts, and they could only ever communicate by texts, at which point he had been the one struggling to talk because he had no clue how to work his phone. She had called the odd time on her half an hour lunch break, but it was always rushed, never consistent, usually ending up with her excusing herself and hanging up on him fast because she was needed urgently somewhere else. 

Cynically enough, the only time she could ever call was Sundays. Sundays when he was already busy, Sundays when he was admittedly on the phone, only he wasn’t talking to her. 

He was talking to Maeve. 

The geneticist he had been ready to tell her all about before JJ’s wedding, who had all but cleared up his migraines within a few sessions, who had asked him three days after Bugsy had flown out what had made his head flare up again and so he’d told her. Told her his best friend moved to another country temporarily, that he missed her and had been looking after her cats for her while she was gone because her new landlord wouldn’t let them have pets. And it had spiralled from there, she had asked more about the rest of his life, and he had asked about hers, and suddenly they weren’t just talking about his migraines anymore, they were flirting. 

He hadn’t told Maeve that he was in love with said friend who had taken a great opportunity with both hands and fled the second she could. He couldn’t hold it against her, not when he was choosing his calls with Maeve over the only chance he had to speak to Bugsy, and four months really wasn’t that long in the scheme of things. 

That was what he’d tried telling himself at least. He missed her more than anything, and the only thing that he’d found combatted the sting of her being gone was Maeve. 

Maeve; who he had never seen, whose voice was sweet and alluring, who got his humour the way girls rarely ever did (besides Bug ofcourse). Who liked what he liked, and could talk his ear off about what she’d been reading, and about her day in the lab. 

She was Bugsy in every other font, every other manner, and best of all she liked him. She told him weeks ago she liked him, that she wanted to date him, that he was her dream guy. 

Call him a cynic for enjoying having a chance with someone, then that’s what he was. 

Life since he had tried pushing away his unrequited feelings for one Prentiss girl had been going swimmingly. He liked their new team mate, Alex Blake, the brilliant linguist who warmed to him quite quickly; he had a girl at his heels who returned his feelings, who was everything he always said he looked for in a partner, even without having ever seen her face, and he was rather enjoying having Nico and Sergio around to keep him company. 

But as it always did, the contented limbo he’d found himself in where he might actually be able to get a girlfriend came to a screeching halt on Sunday afternoon when he was stepping outside at three forty-five, readying himself for the ten minute walk to the nearest phone booth for their call at four pm on the dot. He had just about locked his front door, turning on his heel with his scarf draped over his shoulders when he had collided with someone’s chest. 

“Oh I’m so- Bugsy?” 

“Spencer!” She smiled at him wider than she ever had before, and she threw her arms over his shoulders because he had never protested to her affection before, “It’s so good to see you- I missed you so much, there’s so much I have to tell you-”

“What are you doing here?” It sounded like a confrontation, though he hadn’t meant it that way, just that he hadn’t been expecting her back for another two weeks at least and he certainly hadn’t expected to see her today, right before he was about to go call the girl he was sort of seeing, sort of not. 

She bristled at his tone, because he didn’t sound nearly as happy to see her as she had expected. Pulling away, she realised he hadn’t even bothered to hug her back, and she tried to shove away the embarrassment that she’d never ever felt in front of him before. 

“I- just- I wanted to surprise you. Interpol said I could finish early since I’d finished all my paperwork and could take the exams online in a few weeks,” She stammered, feeling uncharacteristically stuck for what to say. He flicked a look down to his wrist, his brows furrowed like she was taking up too much time, “Is something wrong, did I do something wrong?”

“No, you just-” He breathed heavily out of his nose, running a hand through his hair, “I’m late for something,”

“I’ll drive you!” She jumped at the chance, fishing for her keys in her pocket, “Car’s right out front, I sort of just threw it there because I wanted to see you,”

“I’m walking,” He said, in that frustrated tone again and she stopped looking at her jacket, her eyes snapping to his as he looked past her like she was in his way. 

“O-okay, well then do you want company?” She said, her bag heavy with the souvenir she got him, though now it seemed to be weighing her down. 

“It’s sort of personal,” He replied shortly, like she was a stranger selling him something on his doorstep, when really he was just cursing his luck that the girl he’d spent months trying to get over was here in front of him like someone was waving a bone in his face and he was a pup being told to sit. He was cursing the fact that he had spent hours and hours dreaming of the minute he’d see her again and she had showed up out of the blue after weeks of little to no communication like a damn hallucination of the senses. 

She stopped then, her face contorting into a frown, “Is everything okay, are you sure I didn’t do anything-”

“You could have called, I’m kind of busy, Bugsy,” Spencer replied, even though he knew he was being unreasonable. It wasn’t her fault she was unravelling all of his progress just by being there. He thought he was finally getting over her, and with one whiff of her perfume, of her shampoo mixed with her natural scent, he was remembering just how in love with her he had been just a few months ago, like Pavlov’s fucking dog. 

Her face fell then, into something kicked and hurt, “Sorry- my phone died on the plane, I didn’t even think, I just- I just wanted to see you,” 

He faltered, the frustration leaking out of him, but before he could really say much else, she’d taken a step away, swung around to head for the stairs, “Sorry, I’ll call next time, sorry I got in your way, Spence,” 

And she sounded genuine, not annoyed like he would expect for someone who’d been spoken to like trash. The guilt seeped in almost immediately, but then his mind ticked over the minutes he had left until Maeve would be expecting a call. Nine minutes now, he would need to speed walk. 

He could make it up to Bugsy as soon as he was done with the girl who was almost her but not. 

–

Spencer felt like an idiot. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the look on her face when she had left his apartment, nor had he not stopped chiding himself for not heading straight out after her. 

His phone call with Maeve hadn’t gone how he’d expected, which would have been the only thing soothing the burn of his scathing tone, except she had hung up rather abruptly after he had suggested they meet up, something that had played on his mind for weeks now. 

“Are you being safe?” He asked, the payphone hard and cold in his hand as he pressed it to his ear. 

She chuckled softly down the phone, a sound that would have made his heart flutter if he hadn’t been feeling so wound up about seeing Bugsy, “Yes, I’m being safe,” 

“Do you think he knows about us?” Spencer dared to ask after a moment of silence, because he could tell it was worrying her too. He wondered if the two of them would be dating by now if it wasn’t for the fact she had a stalker who may or may not turn his attention to Spencer if he realised they were seeing one another. 

“No, as far as I can tell he doesn’t,” She said, her voice slightly more rigid than what he was used to. Her voice was always honey smooth when they spoke, and Spencer had more than enough time to wonder if it ever matched what she looked like. “And we need to keep it that way,” 

The line went dead, and with it the only thing that he’d been telling himself was worth hurting his best friend even the tiniest bit went with it. 

Spencer felt like an asshole. He’d tried calling Bugsy’s phone, then when she hadn’t answered he’d tried asking Penelope, who said she’d gone to visit JJ, Will and Henry since he was too busy. 

At least that would have lightened her mood, he hoped, as he walked into the office Monday morning, and saw her at her desk, already chatting to Penelope with Derek’s arm around her shoulder. 

She was all smiles today, pretty much how she had looked yesterday before he had all but kicked her out, and the sinking feeling in his chest tripled when she looked past Penelope’s shoulder and saw him. Her eyes wavered for a second, head turning downwards as if she hadn’t properly spotted him, 

“Pretty boy! Look who it is,” Derek called him over, even though he was already speed walking and he stopped in front of her, looking her head to toe for the first time fully. 

He realised then her hair was slightly different, that she’d had it cut shorter since the last time he’d seen her, that she’d gotten a new ear piercing. It made her look older, more mature than when he’d last seen her, or maybe he had just not seen her in so long. Maybe he just hadn’t bothered, he thought painfully.

“I saw him yesterday,” Bugsy said, and he felt caught immediately, Penelope’s head whipping to him, “He was kinda busy though, weren’t you, Spence? More of a passing visit.” 

She sounded indifferent to yesterday’s rudeness, like it hadn’t really phased her despite the fact he’d seen for his own eyes the way her expression dropped. 

“I was- I had an appointment,” He said, because he felt the need to explain himself even if he couldn’t.

She smiled at him, something dampened and fake, “I leave for a few months and suddenly boy wonder is too busy to talk to me, what is the world coming to,” She joked, and Spencer felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment, though Penny and Derek laughed. 

“No, really, I had an appointment-” He tried to reason, but Penelope stopped him before he could fret too much, his hands wringing and he tried to lie on the spot without getting caught. 

“She’s just kidding, Spence, don’t worry,” Pen shook him off warmly, quickly grabbing Bugsy’s arm tightly, the faint scar where she’d had her surgery trailing up her skin, “Now, to my bat cave, where we can talk all about just how good British guys are in bed without the boy germs getting all over our gossip,” 

Bugsy laughed, allowing herself to be pulled along, right past Spencer without a second glance, despite the fact he looked like he was about to throw up. 

Why hadn’t he thought about that? Why hadn’t he considered for a second that she would meet anyone, if not seriously, then for a one night stand? What if all those nights she was too busy to talk she had been with someone, someone much cooler and hotter and overall more experienced than he was. He was thirty years old and he had only ever slept with two women, one being Austin the bartender she’d told him to go after despite him lingering around her the whole night, the other being a girl he’d met in O’Keeffes after a hard case when he had been a few months sober, wanting anything, anyone, to take his mind away from going back to the little vial of trouble. 

How could he be so stupid? Of course she’d be hooking up with other people. She was young and gorgeous and smart as a whip and single. She’d be any guy's dream. 

He knew he was being so, so disgustingly hypocritical. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Maeve for months, and yet here he was seething with jealousy at the very thought of Bugsy being with someone who could love her without feeling guilty for loving her. 

Spencer swallowed his pride and set his stuff down on his desk, watching Penelope grab Alex and drag her to her bat cave on her way, the older woman lighting up at the fact she was meeting the Bugsy Prentiss. 

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, and felt a migraine start to ache behind his eyes. 

–

“Alex- Blake, where are you going?” Spencer called, shoving his cell in his back pocket as he jogged toward the woman about to climb into the SUV.

Sure enough, Bugsy had been back in the office for one hour before they were getting pulled into another case, and she was more than happy to jump in to help with her new found skills in Interpol. 

It was a gruesome case, which was saying something for all the shit they’d seen. The UnSub was amputating legs off one victim to then put onto his next one. There had been one guy waking up in his hotel room with both legs missing below the knee, then another gentleman had walked into an ER room with legs that weren’t his own attached to his sockets. 

It made Bugsy’s skin crawl, but that was simply a day's work for them. They were at the most recent victim’s body; a woman who seemed to have been too weak to survive the surgery had been dumped on the street with her limbs switched to someone else’s. They had at least one other victim they hadn’t found yet, the girl thought darkly. 

“Hotch called, he wants us back at the station ASAP,” The woman replied, Bugsy at her side.

“Can you give me a ride to 5th and Main, it’s on the way?” Spencer asked, trying his hardest to ignore the frown the youngest Prentiss gave him, confusion written across her face. 

“Uh, yeah sure. What’s at 5th and Main?” Alex asked, also confused as to what was so pressing he needed to side track their case. 

“I need to talk to somebody,” He replied shortly, the same cut off tone he’d used with Bugsy just the day before, and Alex faltered. 

“Yeah, uh, okay. Sure.” She agreed, not wanting to rock the boat considering she was still so new to the BAU. She looked over at Bugsy, who seemed disgruntled as she headed for the passenger side, Spencer climbing into the back of the SUV with a troubled look on his face when their eyes met in the rear-view mirror. 

“You’re coming with us?” He asked, looking on edge when he saw she’d gotten into their car and not into JJ’s like she had on their way over there.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” Bugsy asked, and he shrugged, playing with his fingertips in his lap. 

“No, that’s fine, I just didn’t know you were coming with us,” He replied shortly, his face starting to warm when he realised how rude he’d sounded. He heard her sigh, and look out the window with no more protest in her. 

Alex didn’t ask questions as she put the handbrake down, perhaps sensing the tension in the car between the two agents, and she didn’t need to be a profiler to tell there was either a lot unsaid between them or maybe even words that no one could take back. 

Either way she did as he’d asked, because Bugsy hadn’t actually protested, just bit at her fingernails that said she was thinking too hard, and stepped on the gas.

–

The car pulled around to where a dimly lit payphone sat, empty and looking like it hadn’t been used in years. Which it probably hadn’t, besides as a dog urinal. 

Alex stopped the car, and Spencer was already opening the door before she could even put it into neutral, “Do you want us to wait?” 

“Uh, you know what, it might take a while, so I’ll just get a cab back,” He said, his tone clipped and leaving little room for questions. He felt Bugsy staring at him in confusion from the front seat, and he avoided her gaze like the plague, even if there was something sad in them that he was being so distant. “Thanks anyway,” He hopped out the car slamming the door shut, and digging through his pocket for change as he headed for the payphone. 

Alex drove off, and he felt his chest get lighter for it, because he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up the act. 

He hated lying, especially to her. Every morsel of his being writhed in discontent whenever he would lie, like the truth was just begging to slip out one way or another, and he knew he would only feel all the more guilty for it as soon as the case was over and he couldn’t avoid her eyes that haunted him like a wraith or her touch that seemed to have been kept to herself since he had snubbed her hug at his doorway. 

He knew he was pulling away, knew she was doing the same thing, and he hated it. 

Bugsy sat in the car, her face moody as anything as she glared out the window and Alex took the corner around the block. 

“So is it usually like this between you two?” Alex dared to ask, her food steady on the pedal, “The lingering looks, the awkward silences? From what Penelope told me, the two of you are as close as can be,”

“Yeah, usually we are,” Bugsy replied coldly, and within a second she was unplugging her seatbelt, “In fact, pull back around the block. I’m done with him being an asshole without an explanation.”

Alex felt like she had just pulled a pin from her grenade with her delicate question, though she had meant entirely well, and did as the girl told her to, worried just what might blow up in her face if she didn’t.

Spencer had already dialled the number he knew off by heart, with or without his eidetic memory, by the time they pulled around. 

His face dropped, knowing the returning call would be coming any minute now and he just hoped Maeve wasn’t too worried about him. But he had no time to think about her, because the second he saw Bugsy getting out of the car he could tell she was pissed. 

Pissed in a way she had never been with him, but then he supposed, he had never treated her like that either. 

“I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth, Spencer, because I’m tired of the clipped responses and the pushing me away,” She said, walking over to him like he owed her money. Which he didn’t. But he did owe her a good explanation as to what the hell was going on with them, “Did I do something? You can tell me if I’m an asshole, I know I can be an asshole, but you have to tell me so I can fix it-”

“You haven’t done anything, Bug, just please get back in the car,” Spencer cut her off, which was clearly the wrong move as he saw her brow raise at him. 

“Something’s not right, Spencer,” Alex agreed, though she held back because hurricane Bugsy seemed to be more than enough intimidation for the guy, “What’s the deal?”

“What do you mean? Why did you guys come back?” He rushed, because he could feel his face warming, and he played with his fingertips like he did when he was struggling. 

“Don’t answer a question with a question,” Bugsy chided, and he rubbed his palm with his thumb self-soothingly, and that was what tripped him up. Her eyes zeroed on his hands, looking back up at him and he almost went white at the predicament he’d found himself in, “You’re lying about something,”

“No, I’m not, I would never lie to you-” She pulled his hands apart, looking at him with hurt written across her soft features. 

“Bullshit, I know when you’re lying, Spencer, or did you just forget that we’re best friends. That seems to mean nothing to you nowadays,” She snapped, and he could only look back at the phone booth, knowing that she would be calling any second now, “Are you even listening to me?” 

Her tone was hurt, wounded, because he had to admit he was being inconsiderate. 

“A while back, I found a geneticist that helped clear up my migraines, and we stayed in touch while you were in London,” He said, because that was all true, and she couldn’t call him a liar again if he was telling the truth.

“So? What does that have to do with the case,” Alex prompted, her own face scrunched in ire as he hopped around the subject. 

“I think maybe my friend may be able to see something we’ve missed.” Spencer rushed out, his eyes puppy like as he willed Bugsy to stop looking so damn betrayed. 

“You have four of the best minds I know back at the station, you have a woman with a biochemistry master's standing in front of you who dabbled in medicine for fun, but you need your friend for help?” Alex responded, because there was no way he was getting out of the hole he’d dug himself if she had anything to say about it. She too, as new to the team as she was, had no time for secrets on a job where trust meant everything. 

“I know, but sometimes a different perspective helps me think better, okay?” He replied, his hand itching to take his palm back because he knew it still wasn’t the full truth. 

Bugsy scoffed, crossing her arms over one another, and shifting her weight to one foot. 

“You’re being ambiguous, you always do that when you’re lying,” She muttered, loud enough for him to hear and he gulped, turning his head to the ground. 

“All of this begs a bigger question, why did you ask me to bring you?” Alex asked, because she was thinking the same thing. 

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Spencer said, but his spine straightened impossibly when the payphone began ringing, and he seemed skittish like a naughty school child.

“You could have asked JJ or Morgan to drive you, but you asked me. You had a problem with Bugsy coming, because you didn’t think she’d be with us, so what’s the deal? Why me?” Alex pushed, and Spencer flustered, his head whipping around to where the high pitched chime continued, and he knew she didn’t have much time before the line went dead. 

“Alex, please,” Spencer begged, feeling Bugsy’s eyes boring into the side of his head as he avoided her gaze like the plague. 

“Just answer the question,” Bugsy bit out, because she was sick of being ignored all day, of being treated like she was contaminated or like he had never known her a day in his life. Not when she had flown on the first plane back to see him because she missed him more than she could ever tell him. 

Not when she had been racing up the stairs to his apartment, her souvenir in her bag, the words on the foreword written in her own hand ready to tell him how she felt. 

Because she knew it, after weeks of not seeing him, hours of just missing him and the few texts back and forth, she knew it. She knew she had to tell him, even if they had to brush it under the rug to be friends again, even if it was a shot in the dark she had to tell him. 

She couldn’t choke it down anymore.  

Only when she’d gotten there, thrown her arms around him, he almost felt like a stranger beneath her hand, almost felt like he never even knew her.

Spencer sighed heavily, looking at Alex because he thought he might just crack if he looked at Bugsy when he said it. 

“Because I didn’t want them to know about her, alright?” 

And she knew it then, knew it by the way he’d softened entirely when he said her, the way he seemed to melt just by thinking of her, the way he cowered into taking a step back towards the phone booth. It wasn’t just his geneticist, it was someone else entirely. Someone so much more to him.  

Bugsy felt a lump in her throat, and she forced with all her might to not let her eyes well with tears. Because friends didn’t feel like they’d been sucker punched in the gut at hearing they were seeing someone else. Friends didn’t feel an all consuming jealousy writhe under their skin at the idea of them being with someone who wasn’t them, feeling something for someone who wasn’t them. 

That wasn’t what just friends did. 

And Bugsy thought with horror, as he picked up the phone and spoke in hushed, gentle tones that he once did with her, that they might never be friends again. 

3. The one with their first date

Things were weird. Really weird. And painful. Really, really fucking painful.

Bugsy and Spencer had never been like this, never been so cold besides the first time they’d ever met, and even then she had warmed him from the inside out. She was sharing her sharlotka within hours of even knowing him, never even knowing he was knee deep in an addiction he was struggling to face alone, and that she had made him feel better than he had in weeks with her smile and her kindness and her quick witted brain. 

Things were strange between them, and it was becoming noticeable too. 

She boarded the jet behind Alex, the woman taking a seat next to Hotch at the table, the only other seat left being next to Reid, who stopped midway through what he was saying.

“It’s difficult to lure most people from the security of their own homes, eighty four percent of stalking victims have some sort of original connection with their stalkers, meaning-” He paused, and so did she for a fraction of a second, debating whether to sit beside him. She straightened quickly, dipping her head down and looking to the floor, and bristling past the empty seat to sit herself next to JJ on the couch. 

He cleared his throat, trying to look like his face hadn’t dropped in hurt, and continued.

Hotch and JJ exchanged a look, the same silent message reading clear in their eyes. 

The blonde looked up from her file as the others chatted, Penelope piping up from their computer, and glanced at the younger woman who was unpacking her things on her lap, despite there being a perfectly good table next to them. 

“You alright, Bug?” JJ asked, trying not to seem too worried, yet she knew she was coming off troubled by the tense behaviour from the pair of them.  

It had been three weeks of this, the silences, the uncomfortable pauses, the avoiding each other at all costs. The only time they ever really spoke was on a case, when they were closing in on an UnSub and their feelings had to be put to one side for the moment. Well, her feelings. Because all of his feelings were occupied as of the moment. With Maeve. 

She couldn’t stomach talking about the woman anymore, couldn’t stand Derek’s teasing remarks about how lover boy was getting lucky, or Penelope’s thousands and one questions about the geneticist that she knew had come from a place of care, or Alex’s motherly guidance on his love life. The entire thing made her feel queasy, and she stayed quiet most days in the way he’d always hated, the way he’d always tried to pry her out of. 

But nowadays he didn’t bother. Didn’t bother much with her at all, really. 

“Yep,” Bugsy said, her lips tight, “Peachy,” 

JJ knew not to ask any more than that. 

–

Human marionettes were a first for her, she had to admit. They had already found two victims stuffed into boxes with craft paper surrounding them, their limbs almost entirely broken out of their sockets ante-mortem. It was a time sensitive case, with two deaths in three days and no sign of slowing down, and so that meant that of course the two brains of the team were assigned together, even if Hotch saw the way her face dropped when he’d said it. 

She was drawing the geographical profile on the board, the squeaking of the marker against the screen the only sound in the room aside from Spencer’s flicking of pages. 

“Did you get the first dump site?” He asked, even though he knew she more than likely would have done. 

���Mhm,” She said, not bothering to actually say anything, because it was a stupid question she knew he was only asking to fill the awkward silence between them. 

“What about the store that sold the outfits, did you get-” He started, only for her to cut him off with a clipped tone. 

“Got it, and I got the radius around the store, and I got the second dumpsite.” Bugsy replied, capping the lid to the marker pen and setting it down on the desk beside him, “I’m going to get coffee. Want one?” 

Though she didn’t stick around long enough to really hear his response. She simply waltzed out of the room to the tiny kitchenette the police station had to offer, in search of anything that would keep her occupied and away from snapping at him. 

What had she really got to be mad at him for? For getting a girlfriend? For rubbing it in everyone's face how happy she made him, how perfectly suited she was for him? Except she didn’t think that last one was necessarily true, it just felt that way because it cut her so deep to hear about the girl who was everything she wanted to be. She had no right to be mad at him for anything except being distant with her since she got back from London. 

She still made him a coffee half heartedly, swirling in a tonne of sugar the way she knew he would like, because he never changed being so perfectly him in the time she was away. 

She used to tell him he didn’t need all that sugar because he was sweet enough as he was, because it was true. He used to be entirely honeyed and saccharine when he spoke to her, now she was lucky if she got a full good morning. 

Bugsy bit her lip to stop it from quivering, and took the mugs back to the tiny office they were stationed in, seeing Alex at the door and hearing half their conversation.

“Is this about, uh, phone booth girl?” Blake asked, and Bugsy wanted to snap because what else would they be talking about. Her name was Maeve, she wanted to snarl, Maeve, Maeve, Maeve, Queen of the Fairies and of Spencer’s heart, Maeve, Maeve, Maeve. 

She never hated a name so viscerally, though she knew in deep down it wasn’t her fault. Maeve didn’t do anything wrong, she just fell in love with Dr Spencer Reid and his charms. She couldn’t blame her, really. It wasn’t difficult to do so. 

“She wants to meet,” Spencer’s voice was soft and nervous, and it was the most she’d heard him talk all day. 

Bugsy froze, and Alex’s jaw dropped, “Wait, you guys have never met?” She saw Spencer shake his head just before she rounded the corner back into the office, feeling like she was intruding immediately, “Aren’t you curious what she looks like?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter what she looks like, she’s already the most beautiful girl in the world to me,” She stopped at the doorway, feeling like she’d had the entire cup of hot coffee dumped over her chest in a scalding pain the minute she’d heard it. 

Spencer called her beautiful many, many times before, both when she’d been done up to the nines and even when she was running away from a damn wedding in the middle of a storm and she looked like a sewer rat. 

But that didn’t matter, because everything about Maeve was beautiful to him, and that was where she seemed to draw the short straw. Because who would find her selfishness beautiful? Or her spoiled nature, or how she could be so crass and rude she had been in more fights before she started the BAU than she’d care to admit. But Maeve was nothing like that. She was sweet and gentle and beautiful on the inside. 

Bugsy plonked his coffee down harder than she’d wanted to, and he thanked her, pausing for a second as he looked between Alex and Bugsy, the second woman now sipping her steaming coffee freely and pinning maps to an adjacent board as if she couldn’t hear a word they were saying.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” He said, fiddling with his sleeves, “I mean; I slouch, my hair’s too long, my tie is perpetually crooked,” 

“Your hair’s fine,” Alex combats back, watching the girl down her drink in a few sips, “Jesus, do you have asbestos in your throat?” 

Bugsy turned to her and shrugged silently, “I’m tired, I needed the caffeine,” 

Alex watched her with a hesitant eye, as if she was keeping just as close an eye on her as Jennifer but didn’t want to say, before she stepped away from the doorway, “Alright, I gotta run. You kids update us if you find something out.” 

And with that Blake took her leave, leaving the room in silence for a moment, and Bugsy heard Spencer thinking too loud with that big brain of his. 

She sighed, tacking a map of the city up next to the other one with points of interest noted on, “You’ll be fine,” She said after a minute, and he froze. 

“I’m sorry?” He asked, formally like she asked to sit next to him on the bus or to squeeze past him in a store. 

“I said you’ll be just fine on your date with Maeve,” She reiterated, using a purple sharpie to start drawing the routes the victims took to work. 

Spencer sighed, shuffling papers around his desk, “How can you be so sure?” 

She looked at him then, properly looked at him and he felt his breath almost catch. He’d been telling another one of his half truth’s earlier, because he couldn’t very well say just how many night’s he’d thought about Bugsy being all over him, about kissing her and sweeping her off her feet, about squeezing her close to him in a passionate embrace and never letting her slip away again. He thought about all the times she professed how much she loved him and how good a friend he was to her, and how happy she made him, and how he had spent the first year of knowing her getting to know her for that big brain of hers that rivalled his own. 

He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything, but he couldn’t have her. He could have Maeve though. He could meet her and fall in love with her and marry her. He could do it. But she still wouldn’t be her. 

She smiled at him like she had a secret, one she was willing to share with him, one that came at a cost but she would give it to him anyway because it was him and she was so good to him and deserved so much better. 

“What’s not to like about you, Spencer?” She said softly, her expression that of a street dog looking for scraps.

He swore he shuddered when she said his name like that, but he tried a smile back at her anyway. But it was too late, she’d already turned away to continue plotting the points on the map. 

Spencer felt his chest swell in a way Maeve had never gotten it to do.

–

He felt stupid. Half an hour of primping himself in the BAU bathroom, worrying and fussing over what he was wearing and if his hair sat right and if his face looked too skinny, he had made it to the restaurant only to baulk at the last minute when he’d seen a guy in a booth flicking his head to look back at where he was sat in a window seat, a red rose potted in the middle of the table and an empty chair across from him. 

He had panicked and called Maeve, told her to go home because her stalker was there at the restaurant, and she had done just that with little to no question. Only for him to see, minutes later, the guy he thought was her stalker being approached by another guy and he realised he had likely been looking out the window to check for taxi’s parking outside the restaurant. 

Spencer had blown it, the one chance he had at meeting her in person, and he felt more like an idiot than ever. 

He didn’t care about the weird rift between them at that moment, he just wanted to see Bugsy, because she always seemed to know what to say to make him feel better. Like she had a talent for it, even when he had not been the best friend himself. 

He knew he had to fix it, knew it didn’t matter if it was a little unethical to be on the cusp of having a girlfriend whilst also pining after his best friend, he didn’t care. He wanted to set things right with her just to have his best friend back. 

He walked up to her apartment complex, the excuse already brewing in his head that he missed Nico and Sergio, that he maybe missed her a whole lot too but he knew the cats were a sweetened deal way of getting him through the door. Because she would never say no to him seeing the boys. 

And then he would tell her, that he’d been an asshole the past few weeks, that he’d been struggling to understand how to balance time between her and his almost girlfriend, because that was a much better half truth than the fact he was trying to bury his feelings for her so deep they couldn’t see the light of day or else his life would be entirely ruined. 

That’s exactly what he would say.

Spencer felt a little better than he had leaving the restaurant knowing he’d messed up his chance. In all honesty, he was excited to have Bugsy back, even if his night wasn’t exactly going to plan. 

He waltzed up the stairs he’d been on a million times. She loved his apartment, she always said so, but he insisted her TV was bigger and so they usually stayed at hers to watch Dr Who when the newest episodes came out. 

Spencer hesitated for a second, hoping his plan worked before he rapped on the door with boney knuckles, his hand fingering the strap of his bag nervously as he heard her moving behind the door. 

“One second!” She called, and he chuckled, she had probably fallen asleep on the sofa without pants on, or maybe even just gotten out the shower, either way he heard her scrambling to get clothes on and then-

She swung the door open, and his eyes quickly dropped to her neck that had a long row of hickeys trailing down to her collar bone. His small smile at seeing her vanished like one of those magic tricks he liked to do, and he realised her lip gloss was smudged over her chin, her shirt definitely wasn’t her own and he didn’t actually think she had even bothered to put on underwear beneath the large band tee she’d clearly thrown on in the middle of passion. 

Bugsy looked like she’d seen a ghost. 

“Spencer!” She said, her voice choked up like she was exhausted, and he felt his stomach turn. He looked away from her, like he couldn’t stand to even look at her, “I thought you were with Maeve- yo-your date,”

“I had to cancel, it wasn’t safe,” He murmured, tugging the strap of the bag tighter around his shoulder. 

He felt like a complete loser. More than he ever had being shoved into lockers, being dipped into toilet water, being led around by the librarian and her damn butterscotch. 

Spencer felt like his chest was caving in, which he knew was fair on no one to admit, but it was true. 

“Are you okay?” She asked immediately, scanning him over for wounds, “Are you hurt- Is Maeve okay?”

He opened his mouth to reply when he heard foot steps and a hand appeared around her waist, tugging her into a muscled body as the door opened wider. 

“Who is it, babe?” A deep voice spoke, and Spencer felt his face go green when he saw the adonis of a man who stood behind her, his chest littered with smudged lip gloss and bruises resembling her own neck trailing down to his crotch. 

Her face was on fire when Spencer looked back at her, something betrayed in the hazel of his eyes which he knew was entirely illicit to feel in the circumstances, but it was true. 

“Fuck off, Renly,” She shoved him back behind the door, looking at Spencer like the friendship between them they were scrambling to salvage hung in the balance with whatever she said next. “You remember Renly, my lab partner at Johns,” 

Spencer nodded, the image of her lips on his pubic bone wouldn’t leave his mind, and he wondered what came after that, “I remember him,” 

She nodded back, and they went silent. 

They’d found themselves back at that stalemate. 

--

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[fandoms-in-law]

Manual Mood Ring

Summary: To keep up popularity and the Harrington reputation Steve couldn't show many emotions. That didn't mean he didn't feel them, only that he didn't always recognise what feelings he hid. So he wore rings, swapped them out according to his moods. And a few people noticed them.

Authors note: It won the poll by 1 vote and honestly I'm glad about it. In typing the other fic up I realised how not finished it is. This has been a great fic to procrastinate work with over the last couple weeks, but I'm glad with where I finished it.

/\/\

Steve would never say, except to Robin, but it all began because of Eddie and curiosity. If the guys he'd been friends with at the start of high school had paid attention, they could've worked it out too, but none of them thought twice when the week after he noticed, and accidentally cause some bullying over, Eddie's rings, Steve came in wearing one of his own.

The ring, or rather rings, he wore weren't expensive, just simple things he'd spotted in a shop window, but somehow everyone thought it was a wealth thing when they noticed it and so far as Steve heard, nobody realised there were 6 different rings he'd swap out. They definitely didn't question when he swapped them either, not even Nancy.

Robin did know. She only admitted noticing them when Steve dragged her out to buy more after the Russians took his original rings and none of the government agents mentioned finding them. She was the one who asked about why he needed multiple rings when he'd only wear one at a time.

It didn't help the assumptions they were dating when Robin insisted on taking his hand to check which ring he was wearing every time they met up after the explanation that he used them as an indication or self check-in of his mood.

/\/\

Eddie knew Steve Harrington wore a ring. When he started to the gossip in Hawkins High said his father insisted on it due to a tradition but if that was the case then the ring was too plain in Eddie’s opinion.

Then he noticed Harrington changing rings after getting a question wrong in class and was certain the rumour was wrong, even if he couldn't figure out the actual reason for it straight away. After he'd seen that first swap, it was too clear for him to notice the times that the ring got changed, especially since he decided to try and figure out why Harrington would do that.

Spotting Harrington's ring enough to tell the differences in it wasn't easy in school, especially outside of their shared classes, but a theory soon grew in Eddie's mind of them being some sort of manual mood ring. This was only backed up when he visited Scoops Ahoy once or twice over the summer.

Before the fire Eddie even thought he was close to knowing what emotions some of the rings might indicate, but they all changed after that, not even one remained the same as before and, thankfully for Eddie's curiosity, the new ones had more noticeable differences.

With all his curiosity over Harrington's rings, it confused him to realise the kids he'd brought into Hellfire seemed to know nothing of them. Once Mike even commented ' Steve would be cooler if he just wore rings like Eddie's.' as if he wasn't already wearing one constantly. Eddie could spot it glinting on Harrington's finger when he picked them up afterwards, not hidden at all.

From paying attention to those lifts and Harrington's expressions and reactions to the brats gave Eddie some clues on what colour or general shape of rings matched good or bad moods, even if he never saw the detailing on them.

Except for one.

Eddie saw one ring in detail once. Hellfire had an extra club meeting that apparently none of the kids Harrington gave a lift to had mentioned to him until he came storming through the school half panicked. Even after confirming they were safe Harrington made everyone move along the table so he could sit next to Eddie and listen until the end.

The ring that time was in a woven pattern, made of silver and Eddie was certain it meant fear or stress. It had to, given how Harrington only looked away from his kids to watch the door or, for some reason, analyse the ceiling for damage and suspiciously eye the lights.

Who knew getting an answer about one of the rings meanings could give Eddie so many more questions?

/\/\

Survival and fear were the only things going through Eddie's mind. He didn't know what happened to Chrissie or if it would happen to him next. He didn't know if he was trying to hide from that or from the town he was sure would blame him.

He definitely wasn't calm enough to recognise any of the voices yelling for him and dived into the boat as they got closer.

The conversation of the group looking for him was heard but barely understood as Eddie tried to get ready to jump up and fight or run through the hard jabs from an oar he thought was mentioned.

It wasn't the oar or the gaze of the man he pinned that broke through Eddie's fear when he decided to get out.

The hand holding the oar wore a silver woven ring. It wasn't polished and definitely showed signs of tarnishing in the indented areas and it echoed how he felt. He knew the ring and what emotion he was certain it meant.

And he knew that other rings were kept in the back pocket from classes where they'd get swapped out. Those are what he reached for now, still pinning Harrington with one hand which made it harder to separate the bronze ring that tended to be worn if he'd be joking when picking the kids up.

“Guess you're not here to have a go at me, or this would be worn.” Eddie mutters eventually into the silence that had fallen in the boathouse.

“I wouldn't do that. Dustin would never talk to me again if I did that. And how do you know anything about my rings?” Steve's words tumbled past each other, but seemed more confused now, instead of the panic he'd shown when first getting pinned.

“What rings?” Dustin demanded, somewhere behind Eddie.

Steve glanced over, “Forget the rings actually. What happened? We want to help.”

/\/\

Steve hadn't changed his ring in days.

Eddie glanced at it each time they came to give him supplies, came to try and talk him into staying with one of them despite how they'd need to hide him from parents, every time he got the change to.

It was still the silver woven effect ring.

He could only hope he'd live to see another ring take its place and was beginning to suspect Steve was hoping the same thing. A few times he'd been caught looking at the hand wearing the ring, but Steve never said anything, only brought his hand back to the pocket with the rest of them.

“You got the bronze ring wrong.” Robin commented on one of the few moments everyone else was distracted. “It's not when Steve's truly happy or whatever you think.”

Eddie glanced at her, gaze returning to Steve straight away. “What is it then?”

“Forced positivity. It's when he's struggling to believe we want him here so tries to reach out subtly for most of them.” She explained.

“And you?”

“Check his rings when I first see him so give him reassurance as needed. Although you might've changed its meaning now.” Her words sounded slow as if she was musing on the idea. “We'll see after Vecna's defeated.”

Eddie wasn't quite sure what to make of that but Robin was already over with Steve again, catching up with whatever they were working on. At least being in hiding gave him lots of time to think through her cryptic comments for breaks from panicking.

/\/\

“That's my ring.” Eddie stated. He'd been staring at the hand since waking up, originally cause it was clinging tightly and then as his memories filtered through the medication clouding his brain, to see if Steve was still stressed out. How was he meant to understand seeing his own ring being worn by Steve?

Steve's chuckle was watery, and there were tears in his eyes when Eddie looked up. “Yeah, mine now. Glad you're awake finally.”

Somehow that was what made him realise he had none of his rings on at all. “Where are the rest? What does my ring have the honour of meaning?” They felt like dumb questions but Eddie was scared to ask the more serious ones.

“Dustin's got them and your pic necklace. He'll be here as soon as visiting hours start along with at least a few of the other brats. Not sure which are seeing you first today other than him. Wayne's at the trailer salvaging what he can. Added me as an emergency contact so you wouldn't wake up alone.” Steve offered, thankfully guessing what he'd want to know first. “As for the ring, I don't know. I've been a mess, unable to figure out what I'm feeling so it's currently a question mark ring.”

That felt like a familiar feeling as Eddie blinked. He had no clue why things would need salvaging from the trailer at all. “What happened?”

The explanation carried on through the kids arriving, Dustin trying to push the rings onto Eddie and being stopped by nurses not wanting the jewellery in the way, and plenty of interruptions and additions. It covered how the attack that had left him in an induced coma to heal had only partly succeeded and everything that had come after and ended with Steve pushing his hair back into place sighing, “Thankfully most of us decided against sleeping through it all. Vecna is gone now and we're just waiting for people to wake up and heal.”

“And get Steve to explain how he's worn a ring so long without us knowing.” Dustin insisted, glaring at said man.

Eddie grinned, shaking his head alongside Steve. “It's not the king's fault if his friends don't pay attention to him. After all, I'd never spoken to him before all of this and I knew about the rings.”

“Lies.” Robin called, appearing in the doorway. “You spoke to him precisely 7 times as I never served you when you came into Scoops.”

Steve tilted his head, thinking before he shook his head at her. “Nope. He just pointed and handed over the money. I spoke to him before it all, but not the reverse. Such an unsociable customer.”

“You couldn't get Eddie Munson to talk to you? That board needed more tallies under you suck.” Robin teased, coming over and smiling at Eddie. “How are you feeling?”

For a moment it was silent as Eddie didn't realise the Steve and Robin show had finished with a question to him. “Oh, I'm – Honestly I feel like I died and this is a bizarre form of purgatory. Could be hell from the pain levels but you're all being too nice for that.”

/\/\

Robin loved Steve's rings. She saw them as a small rebellion against his parents rigid views of gender as well as a good idea for someone who wasn't often allowed to express his emotions.

Even before she knew what they showed, back when they were just co-workers and former classmates, she paid attention to the rings and the ways Steve swapped them out. She knew the original set of 6 almost as well as she knew the ones she'd helped Steve find to replace them.

And she knew they definitely shouldn't be in Nancy Wheeler's jewellery box, still bagged with a label from the US government stating they had been goods confiscated by the Russians.

When she saw them it wasn't sensible to mention it. They were still dealing with Vecna and trying to find out more about him, but she remembered and once everything was over, and all that was left to do was healing, she wasn't going to stay silent any more.

“You know, Nancy, I've had a question for a while.” She stated, off hand, but laser focused on getting answers.

It was just her, Steve and Nancy for the moment so seemed like the best time to bring it up without anyone else interfering.

Nancy didn't seemed concerned either, just smiling. “Which is?”

“You never had anything to do with the Russians during the Starcourt fiasco, right?” Robin didn't immediately mention the rings, knowing just bringing up any of the events was likely to get the guard up of all of them.

Guarded eyes now looked at her, and beside her, Robin knew Steve was trying to catch her eye to silently ask what she was doing. “No. You know I was researching for the paper or with the kids basically the entire time.” Nancy agreed.

“Okay. So why, when we were trying to figure out info on Vecna, did I find a bag of items labelled as things the Russians had confiscated in your jewellery box?” Robin still didn't mention the rings, but knew Steve would immediately think of them.

After being given his keys back he'd tried asking about them but been told nothing else was found. Both of them had watched the government agent then go to talk to other members of their group but assumed that wasn't regarding any other items.

Nancy narrowed her eyes, but stood, going over to the jewellery box to get the bag. “Because the government agents said they'd found them and they seemed most likely to belong to me.”

Robin nodded, holding her hand out for the bag. “So little miss reporter got handed some items she knew definitely weren't hers and instead of say, asking any of the people who had actually been in the Russian base if they knew whose they were decided to keep them for herself and never question the origins?” She challenged, reaching out to take them when Nancy showed no sign of handing them over.

“I recognised them. I've tried remembering why I recognise them so I could return them.” Nancy insisted.

“Again, why didn't you just ask me, ask Steve, Dustin, Erica, if any of us knew who these rings belonged to?” Robin challenged, Steve's hand coming to rest palm up on her shoulder although he remained silently watching the scene.

Nancy glared, “Because I should know whose they are.” She snapped. “If I could just-”

“Pay more attention to the people around you, you'd know.” Steve interrupted when it looked like Nancy would go into a rant about her memory to try and justify not asking. “The reason you'd recognise these is I was always wearing one of them the entire time you knew me.” His voice was calm, but Robin could feel the tension in him, and a glance over at him showed his current rings had been swapped. She didn't think he'd go back to using the set she held even as she put the bag in his hand.

For a moment it looked like Nancy would scoff before she narrowed her eyes on Steve's hands, as if only just realising he still wore a ring. “But why would there be 6 of them?” She asked. “Only Eddie wears that many or more at a time.”

“Because I swap them out when I feel like it.” That wasn't the explanation Robin had received and she doubted the full one would be offered right now. “Thanks for returning them finally. I'm more annoyed that even when I asked specifically about the rings those agents didn't mention them to me at all.”

“Oh.” Nancy deflated as she realised Steve wasn't going to yell at her. She seemed not to notice Robin's gaze was still hard. “Yeah, sorry I didn't remember or, as Robin rightly said, ask whose they were earlier.”

At that Robin leant forward again, knowing her smile was colder than she'd normally direct at friends. “Please do ask if this happens in the future, because Steve shouldn't have had to replace his rings for you to delay solving a mystery this long.”

Nancy nodded, “I will. Are you two sure you aren't-?”

“Best friends and protective friends at that. You might be pretty but you aren't Stevie.” Robin reaffirmed, before sighing and trying to let her annoyance go. “Shall we put a film on or something?”

Steve hopped up, going to the stairs to listen for where Nancy's parents might be. “Probably not a film. I think Ted is still watching something, unless you're about to suggest going back to mine.”

“Funnily enough, Dingus, I was.” Robin agreed, also getting up. If she hadn't wanted to get him his rings back she'd have suggested going there to hang out from the start but now that was done she would happily swap hang out locations.

/\/\

Perhaps he'd just been young, but Steve had never thought he'd have to get more rings, after finding six of them. Emotions had seemed simple to him, nothing like the tumult he'd been going through and while six rings had stretched before now he was learning that getting more was necessary.

He didn't question how, in getting those original rings back, he knew that one already meant heartbreak and grief, while the rest weren't needed any more. It just seemed reasonable; an escalation of the swap from the ring saying everything is good to saying his world was crashing before he lost them, to now having its hopefully final meaning be grief.

Then there was Eddie's ring, the mixed feelings ring, or as Steve still thought of it, a question mark ring. He hadn't meant to claim it, but when taking the rings off so the hospital didn't dispose of them he hadn't been able to let it go, even to hand it to Dustin. He'd covered by swapping it out with the stressed ring and repeating that Eddie wanted him to wear a different ring.

Honour: A word Steve had only ever heard directed to him jokingly, but Eddie used for his ring being worn. It boggled his mind a bit to realise how sincere the other was being with him. A lot of things did when it came to Eddie, like the fact he'd called Steve a good person out of nowhere and without prompting. Most people just complained about or insulted who he used to be and when he tried talking with Robin about it she'd got mad at herself before repeating how good a person he was now. That hadn't helped his bewilderment, just added another cause for it.

“Dingus, why are you glaring at your rings and a notebook?” Robin asked, draping over his shoulder and bringing Steve's mind back into Family Video and the slow work day they were trying to keep busy through.

“I need more of them but don't want to go around with even more rings in my pocket. Or know how to label what feelings they'd be for.” He grumbled.

She leant closer, forcing Steve to bend with her so she could see the notebook better. “Yeah starting from scratch is dumb. Write what you have rings for already, Your terms not mine or anyone else's, and see what you think is missing after that. Then see which stand out as unlikely to be worn often. Those could live in your car or wallet or something instead of your pocket.” Saying this she moved to his side and laid the rings out on a clear page of the notebook.

As Steve considered the idea Robin wandered off to check on the only customer. It was a pretence he knew, but one he's grateful for, even as the biggest necessity in his list becomes evident.

There's nuance, and different rings for sadness, anger, confusion, embarrassment, heartbreak, but only 'good' and 'trying to see positives' for good emotions. Good was one he barely knew how to quantify now and 'trying to see positives' didn't actually feel good to wear. But Steve wasn't feeling constantly bad, he knew that. He felt hopeful, amused, warm, and loved; like these friends were a real family.

Plus the question mark ring was where good and bad emotions were fighting in him.

“Do you think Eddie will come ring shopping with us?” He called out, settling on the four emotions he needed new rings for and looking around the store for the first time in a while.

“I think I can fit that in, yes Stevie.” Eddie replied, leaning on the counter opposite him. Robin was stood beside him looking over at Steve in amusement.

He shifted a little, looking between them, expecting to get teased. “You've been here how long?”

“Couple minutes, was going to block the page to say hi but you looked so adorably focused.” Eddie shrugged. “Are these all your current ring meanings? You've still not told me-” The words broke off as he read the list, fingers tapping over empty spots noted for new rings

Robin had started snickering, needing no words to tease once Steve met her gaze, but stopped in confusion at Eddie's reaction. “Sure they are. He's decided he needs to show more emotions than that now.”

“Like more positive ones, you mean?” He asked, a sharp gaze stabbing at her. “Little Miss Platonic, why haven't you told him to get more or change all the meanings so he doesn't only have negative emotions to show sooner?”

“What?” The demand was when Steve realised their focus might be surrounding him but it didn't currently involve him. “When did those change?”

He blinked at them, seeing a tussle break out for the notebook and wondering what Robin meant as he glanced as the ring on his finger now, bronze, looking for positivity, then back to her. “They didn't?” He asked, trying to remember what he'd told her they meant. He'd probably described situations which made him change to each ring he was replacing after Starcourt since describing his feelings isn't easy without them. “What did you think they meant?”

Instead of saying anything she snatched the pen to start writing her understanding of the rings down, Eddie's eyes getting wider as he read them. “That's – That's some difference.”

“Did I explain when I'd swap to wearing them before?” Steve asked, unable to read upside down and just getting frowned at as Robin made it clear he had and she didn't like the meaning mix-up it had apparently caused. “You still know how to help anyway.” He tried to reassure, hoping to lessen the glare.

“Just how pissed should I be at Nancy?” Robin demanded instead, angrily gesturing to the embarrassment ring. “How much didn't you say when I thought you might date her again?”

Both Steve and Eddie stepped back from her anger as Steve frantically tried to remember what he'd used to explain that ring and how it involved Nancy. “You literally said you didn't need to know that story.”

“Apparently I do now if just her visiting your workplace has you feeling embarrassed enough to change rings over it.” Robin insisted. “So, story-time please Steve. What happened with Nancy Wheeler?”

/\/\

“Did you argue with Buckley?” Jonathan asked, sitting down beside Nancy and taking in the glare levelled at them.

She looked over as well but soon looked away. “The rings were Steve's. She found them but didn't seem this mad then.”

For a moment he just nodded, before straightening to look for Steve. “I didn't imagine the rings he used to wear then? I guess between you giving them back and now we've been spoken about. Makes sense I think.”

“What does?”

“Steve's best friend being pissed when he told her what happened between us three. I did wonder if she knew anything beyond the rumours.” He explained, waving when Steve emerged from the kitchen.

Nancy stared, trying to understand how Robin's anger came from that, even as she smiled at Steve coming over.

“You two okay? Your move back to Hawkins going well?” Steve asked, relaxed, a ring shaped into a shield on his hand.

“We're good, are you?” Jonathan asked, but carried on without pausing for a reply, “Realised that we never apologised for everything during that Halloween. I thought you'd broken up honestly, until Dustin said you were taking flowers to Nance when he asked for help.”

“I'm good and thank you. It's all history now and I'm pretty sure there was no coming back from that argument. I'm sorry for everything bad I did back then too. Some fault on both sides, I think.” Steve hurried to accept the apology but followed Nancy's gaze when she looked back over to Robin. “And Robs will calm down soon enough. She just got the meanings of some of my rings wrong and is mad about it.”

“What meanings do they have?” Nancy asked, glancing back at the ring he currently wore. “Eddie too? He did the hand hold thing too today.”

His nose scrunched but he looked amused, “Yeah but also no. That's cause Henderson tried using Robin's ring checking as evidence I'm dating her and Eds wants to see if he'll insist the same for someone else doing it. I'm preparing for anything Robin does to me to get copied or escalated for a while.”

“You're cool with that?” Jonathan challenged, looking shocked at the thought and Nancy could remember their fight from years back, wondering if that was why.

“Robin would kill me if I wasn't. Plus it means my empty home is a lot noisier with laughter now.” Steve mused. “Yeah, I'm pretty happy about Eddie's game.” As he finished speaking his hand dipped into his back pocket, a practised gesture that seemed absent enough to be unnoticeable as his ring was swapped out while he looked around the gathering. “I'd better check the kids aren't causing trouble over there.”

There was silence between them for a moment as he headed away. “So that's the first time I've actually seen that happen.” Jonathan eventually commented.

“No wonder. If he hadn't just mentioned his ring I'd have missed it.” She agreed, wondering why Steve would hide the gesture but do it so openly. It was more evidence that she hadn't known him as well as she thought.

/\/\

Dustin was getting frustrated. He'd thought it was a blatant lie when Robin said she was checking Steve's ring each time she took his hands upon greeting. Then he'd thought maybe it was valid but still an excuse after noticing them was what started calming Eddie down in the boat-shed.

Now Eddie kept waiting behind Robin as she checked Steve's rings, draping himself over the side of him left free when they watched movies. It was getting honestly difficult to get a hold of either of them separately and Dustin didn't trust it.

“Why are you leading Eddie on?” He accused one of the few times Steve picked him up without the other already in the car.

“I'm not, but thanks, really flattering view of me you have there.” Steve huffed.

Dustin narrowed his eyes, “You're straight Steve.” He stated as if he was being dumb. “Why are you accepting his flirting when you aren't into him? Are you going to hurt him?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “One, that's not for you to question for me. Neither of us are going to get hurt. Two, Eddie checked and keeps checking we both know where we stand in this. Three, thanks for winning me that bet.”

“Bet? What bet?” He demanded but they'd pulled up in the trailer park and Eddie was already climbing in.

He'd clearly heard the question and leaned over Steve's seat, pulling his hand up to check the ring while asking, “Yeah Stevie, what bet are you telling Dustin about?”

“One I won cause he got in telling me off for leading you on.” He smirked, taking his hand back to pull off again. “Seatbelt.”

“As if I wouldn't follow you anywhere, Big boy. Keep leading.” Eddie remarked flippantly before swatting at Dustin, “But talk about clouded vision, Shithead. So when Robin does it they're dating but I do it and I'm being led on.”

Dustin spluttered for a moment, but Steve's smirk got sharper, “So that's me and Robin one each, you none. Lucas could be anyone's but I think you have a shot at Mike.”

/\/\

Robin helped Steve find it, the final ring he’d buy for himself hopefully. She’d helped with everything else in his realisations since Eddie’s game began and was trying to make him share his feelings with Eddie now.

The ring had been both Steve’s way to delay that admission and his hope that Eddie would bring the conversation up for him. If only because he had no intention of advertising the feeling it meant at all.

It should have worked too, except he was never wearing the ring when Eddie first arrived, never able to get privacy when the change was noticed by the other and didn’t see how it could change with their kids all wanting attention constantly. He almost felt like his crush was doomed to silence and Robin’s teasing over it but refused to accept it, adapting instead. He started swapping rings when even slightly feeling besotted, hearing Dustin raving over something Eddie had done or a song reminding him of the other. Steve even started practising demanding private moments and dragging Robin off during her greetings, just waiting for Eddie to question this new ring.

“Is it my turn to ask for a private chat, big boy?” Eddie asked, finally seeing Steve’s latest ring worn as he arrived.

Everyone else was filing through the house to the kitchen or Steve’s pool and barely glanced their way as Steve tugged Eddie upstairs, blush only noticed by Robin as they went.

“You like my ring then?” He asked only after they were alone. It was partly to delay the admission, but mostly a genuine question. When looking for this ring he’d specifically wanted something that reminded him of Eddie’s rings and the coiled serpent design seemed fitting.

/\/\

Eddie for the first time in a while didn’t know what to say. He wanted to ramble about how much he liked it and wanted a similar one for himself; wanted to interrogate Steve on this new ring when he’d been resolute on pairing rings up if he found an emotion missing from their meanings in the future; wanted to ask if it was a way to get his attention.

It was mostly the last of the list actually, but that felt too vulnerable to say.

“It’s metal, but why? You said you didn’t want to get any more after our shopping spree.” He asked, holding back all the words trying to tumble out.

Steve fell backwards onto his bed, heaving a sigh and making Eddie wonder if he’d asked the wrong thing. “Because a crush isn’t as simple an emotion to indicate and I didn’t want you to make similar errors to Robin if I paired it up with other rings straight away.” He muttered to the ceiling.

Hope flickered to light where it had dimmed at the sigh. “A crush? On who?” There was a guess, especially with how Dustin had been distracted from his questions the week before, but he wanted to hear it for himself.

“You.” Steve said, rolling onto his side and watching Eddie as he stood just beside the door, never having moved since they came in.

He moved now, taking the hand and brushing his thumb over Steve’s ring. “That explains why you weren’t wearing it when I wasn’t around at first, but not why you’re wearing it now.”

“Will mentioned you earlier, some of the chats you’ve had with him over Mike.” He hummed.

“Your love for those kids is cute.” Eddie grinned, kneeling on the bed beside him. “It also doesn’t say what you want to happen now. You seem plenty happy with me copying how Robs treats you but are you wanting more than that?”

Everything in Eddie was screaming to just ask for more, or lean down and kiss Steve, or do something other than gently prying more details out from the gorgeous boy rolling around on the bed.

“Maybe you could kiss me too sometimes, see how we feel about going further when my house isn’t full of everybody else.” Steve smirked up at him, as if reading the desires on his face. “Oh and invitations to either your band practices or performances. I want those too. Who knows maybe the Corroded Coffin boys could just fit in with this chaotic family of ours over time.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, leaning so their lips were millimetres apart. “Want to join our families? You already thinking of marriage, big boy?”

Steve leant up for a small kiss, “Forever with you sounds like torturous bliss. Where do I sign up?”

“I think you already have.” They both grinned into the deep kiss Eddie pulled him into then.

#stranger things #steve harrington #robin buckley #eddie munson #steddie #nancy wheeler #platonic stobin #dustin henderson

[artificial-transmutations]

Historically Accurate

"I'm telling you, Hollywood is going down with all the woke crap! You know what they say: Go woke go broke!"

Julian and Wallace were on their way back from the lunch room and the former was listening to the latter complaining. Julian had tried to avoid any topic like this, but, really, it was a mine field with Wallace. Just about *every* topic had the potential to turn out political.

"I don't see what's wrong with a little inclusion in pop culture." Julian said, not wanting to argue but also not wanting to leave that opinion unopposed.

"Everything! It's just plain wrong, and it's brainwash, too. I mean, it's like a mind virus, poisoning everything! There's a western coming out next week. But it's all bullshit woke agenda again. The cowboy is black and gay! Literal brainwash and historical rewrite."

Julian frowned. How could an intelligent person like Wallace be so stupid at the same time?

"Why does that even bother you? I thought you hated westerns."

"Yes, that's not the point. Fact is, it's historically inaccurate and just pushing the woke agenda."

"Actually, I think it's not even historically incorrect." Julian pondered as they entered the lab using Julian's keycard and an iris scan of both scientists.

Wallace was borderline angry now.

"What are you talking about? Everyone knows that cowboys were the whitest and the straightest people there were."

"I'm not quite sure", Julian said. "Weren't there freed slaves and so on? And I would guess if you were underway with another guy for prolonged periods of time, not everything staid straight, too."

"Bullshit! Everyone knows cowboys weren't fags, and they were white."

Wallace seemed agitated now, and his usual stiff demeanor became even more pronounced.

Wallace was in his mid-forties, but the way he was talking, he seemed way older to Julian.

Julian on the other hand was awfully young for the position he had. Being 25, he still didn't look like he had finished college, even though he had his doctorate already.

It was really a bit sad, he thought. Two of the brightest minds and they were bickering over basic, meaningless distinctions like ethnicity or sexual orientation.

"We could just ask the computer." he proposed, but Wallace frowned.

"We are not supposed to use the equipment for private research." he said.

'The computer' was part of the highly secretive project they worked on. When finished, it was supposed to be a time machine, simple as that. The actual time travel device didn't work properly yet, but a part of it, a chronoton boosted quantum computer that was able to access history itself to answer questions about the part, was already functioning quite well.

"But we are supposed to test it from time to time. Are you afraid of the answer it might give?"

"Of course not." Wallace grumbled. "Fine. Computer! Is there any historical evidence of gay black cowboys?"

The voice activated system acknowledged the request with a beep. While waiting for the answer, Julian checked the parameters of the system and found them in near-perfect condition.

Finally, the system answered, with the neutral male voice it was programmed with.

"A significant portion of cowboys consisted of people with African heritage, especially after the freeing of slaves after the civil war. Homosexual acts and attraction were common among cowboys, especially during the trail drives. Demonstrating..."

"Hrmpf." Wallace said, clearly not happy.

Julian, who was still checking the readings, scratched his head.

"Did you remember to disconnect the capsule before making the query? It seems to be drawing power."

"Ah, crap. That's just because of all the bullshit talk. Computer, stop!"

"Unable to comply. Demonstrating... Target: Montana Frontier Area, June 1865..."

The white walls of the chamber started to glow in an ever brighter white that was beginning to hurt the eyes.

"Crap. Julian, cut the power!" Wallace said, now with a clear notion of fear in his voice. The younger scientist didn't answer but tried to do as he was told - but did not succeed in time.

Suddenly, with a flash, their surroundings changed and the two of them found themselves in the middle of a rugged mountain range, on the border of a pine forest. It was late afternoon and the scientists found themselves in a just set-up camp. Two horses were standing nearby, and a small herd of cows was grazing at a meadow.

Wallace sighed and shook his head angrily. "Just great. Look at the mess you just put us in. Now we have to wait until we're rescued. And, apparently, we have to meet some black homo cowboys."

Julian looked around but couldn't see anyone around.

"I would have also guessed so, but there doesn't seem to be anyone there."

His heart sank as he had a terrible suspicion. He had been experimenting lately with a normalization circuit that would embed the time travelers into history instead of superimposing them onto it. That was - according to his theories - a rather elegant way to resolve the repelling effect the historical structure had, but it wasn't finished by any means. It had never been tested and even theoretically, it wouldn't be able to achieve a partial embedding, only a full one at best. And the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that it had still been connected to the system.

As Julian thought about how to break it to Wallace, he noticed something strange about the other scientist. It could be a trick of the light, but he looked way more tanned than before.

"Uhm... It might actually be somewhat worse than that. I think my normalization circuit was still active when you activated the machine."

"What? What does that mean?" Wallace looked at him, furiously now.

"Well, I would guess..." Julian struggled and gave up. "Look at your hands, I think it's pretty self-explanatory."

Wallace looked down at his darkening hands and paled. Even now, he still had a considerably darker skin tone than before, darkening with every passing second.

"Shit." he said. "That's what you get for fucking around with a half-finished experiment."

Julian didn't even dare to mention his suspicion. If his normalization circuit was really active, that would make Wallace an actual, black cowboy, and not just him. Julian was also a time traveler, so he, too, would be affected.

Meanwhile, the changes in Wallace seemed to have proceeded. His facial structure looked like it was in motion before finally settling on a generally broader, manlier shape: The jawline became more pronounced, and his cheekbones raised.

"Is there... anything going on with me as well?" Julian asked.

Wallace looked over at him.

"Yeah, your hair color is changing, and I think your eye color. Blonde and blue-eyed, how cliché. But most importantly, you're not becoming fucking a fucking Black man."

Wallace didn't say Black man.

For some reason, this didn't bother Julian half as much as it should have. He felt rather at ease, and the untamed wilderness around him awakened a sense of adventure inside of him that he didn't know was in him.

Meanwhile Wallace was also feeling a change within. A surge of confidence emerged from within him that was entirely alien to the deeply insecure man at first, but quickly became more and more part of his personality. It was like his core was solidifying into a confident and assertive nature, a boldness and quiet he secretly always wished he had. At the same time, his body structure changed considerably.

Where before, Wallace had been a physically unimpressive mid-forties man, it now seemed like the years melted off of him, and for every year that he lost, he gained three pounds of muscle mass and beef. His shoulders widened, his height increased, and his frame expanded in order to accommodate the new body mass.

"It's not that bad, ain't it?" While Julian's body had not changed much besides the hair and eye color, his voice sounded entirely different now. It had a southern lilt to it, but it was charismatic and charming. It was the kind of voice you could listen to for hours without end, perfect for reading an audiobook - or telling campfire stories.

"Well now, I ain't too sure 'bout that." Wallace's voice had changed even more considerably when he answered. He had gained a thick southern accent, and his voice had dropped to a low and smooth voice that sounded commanding even if he didn't intend to.

"Ha, look at that, your skin's startin' to change now, too!"

And really, Julian's skin had started to adapt as well, but it was quickly becoming apparent that it went a different route than Wallace's. Instead of darkening to the almost black tone that he was sporting, Julian's skin became rougher and got a sun-kissed tan instead. His facial features sharpened, as his cheekbones looked chiseled all of a sudden and a rugged beard texture was adorning his chin. Julian seemed to notice it, too, since he started touching his new face immediately.

"Cool! Always wondered what I'd look like sportin' a beard." he said, apparently not too unhappy with the changes.

There was no denying Julian looked good, which made Wallace feel a touch of jealousy. In his opinion, it wasn't fair that he was the only one having to deal with the black skin. That feeling quickly faded, though, as his changes continued. His hair became very short, curly and dark. At the same time, a short beard formed on his chin and upper lip, giving him an even manlier appeal. At the same time, chest hair sprouted, sparsely of course, as it was normal for a man of his heritage. A strange feeling overcame Wallace. He wasn't necessarily *proud* to be Black now, but he also didn't mind it anymore. He was proud of a lot of secondary assets, though, like his bulging muscles or his handsome face. As his eyes became a dark brown, he had to smirk as he sat down by the fire, readjusting himself in the process. And, of course, his big cock, which might also have been positively influenced by his new ancestry.

Wallace watched as Julian turned around and tended to the horses. His body was now, finally, also changing. It didn't become nearly as bulky as his own, but instead lean and agile, with narrow hips and a well-distributed surprising strength, as Wallace knew. While Julian was busy with the horses, Wallace had a good view of his ass. It filled out the jeans just so well, and Vallace only noticed now that the other man's attire had changed. He was clad in a pair of blue jeans, a vest and, of course a Stetson now, and Vance always thought that this outfit accentuated the best parts of his partner quite well. He preferred black leather, himself, since the material was sturdier and felt better on the skin.

Vince felt his cock hardening in his leather pants and readjusted himself again while also leaning back and spreading his legs to make more room for the erection. He wasn't afraid of anyone seeing his rude behavior. The only other man within a wide range was Jesse, the owner of that juicy ass. And he was allowed to see... well, everything.

Vince waited patiently until Jesse returned to the campfire, with a big smile on his face.

"How them horses holdin' up, partner?" Vince asked.

"They're good. Just a tad worn out from today's ride." Jesse answered.

"Well, there's somethin' else needs tendin' to, if you're free to lend a hand. Or an ass." Vince grinned and made his cock throb in the confines of his tight leather pants.

Jesse grinned at the display of masculinity and massaged his own cock.

"Hell yes!"

As Jesse moved over in his usual graceful movements, Vince leaned back. There really wasn't anything better than being a big, black cowboy. Especially not with a partner like Jesse, who was always happy to make the nights in the wilderness a little less lonely.

Certainly not poor and lonesome! Also check out this awesome writer!

There are a few more versions of Jesse and Vince, over at my tip jar.

#male transformation #straight to gay #muscle transformation #racial transformation #cowboy #historical transformation

[lissomeingenuestuff]

CLARA BOW // charles leclerc - pt. 4

charles leclerc x figureskater!reader

part 1 part 2 part 3

summary: you're an aspiring olympic gold medalist who just wants to compete and have fun. on the way there, a handsome monegasque f1 driver slides into your dms and changes the trajectory of your life.

note: pt. 4 bby! i'm so excited to finally get into the main part of this story with you guys! you have no idea of the devilry i have planned 😈

cassievilleneuve

liked by y/n l/n, isabeau.levito, and 8,393 others

cassievilleneuve we weren't cool enough for the amex lounge 🥲

view all 134 comments...

carolinevilleneuve sleepy bears 🧸💙

y/n l/n at least my ass looks nice 🤷🏻‍♀️

cassievilleneuve speak for yourself i look like a potato 😭 thanks care

carolinevilleneuve anytime 😁

leclerclover43 y/n is so unserious i love her 😄 "at least my ass looks nice"

y/n l/n well it does, doesn't it?

leclerclover43 you're so right queen ofc it does 🤧

leclerclover43 also, any reason why you might be traveling?

y/n l/n 👀🤫

leclerclover43 oH

isabeau.levito vacation without me? 🥲

y/n l/n bby issy you have school!

isabeau.levito australia >>>>>>> school

isabeau.levito also, where did all these people come from? what did i miss?

carolinevilleneuve you missed the y/n x hot driver saga!? dm NOW

callsignice am i the only one wondering why y/n's going to australia literally like 4 days after the olympics ended? didn't she just get back home?

y/n l/n

liked by oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc, and 22,691 others

y/n l/n cassie's man crush treated us to... whatever that is 😄

view all 213 comments...

cassievilleneuve i do NOT have a crush!!

y/n l/n bro be so fr i know more about him than i know about my own crushes 😭

sainzismysign don't be shy y/n, tell us, who's your crush 👀

y/n l/n i don't kiss and tell 😝

charles_leclerc Whatever that is it looks like a lot of sugar 😳 can i have some?

y/n l/n i'd get you some, but i don't need your trainer up in my dms threatening me 😔

charles_leclerc Andrea's an angel, I promise 🙏🏻 no threats

pierregasly Andrea, an angel? LMAO

charles_leclerc Pierre, fermez-la!

emmalechair yeah pierre let our boy shoot his shot!

carolinevilleneuve ...where did this picture come from? i don't remember going to a restaurant?

y/n l/n neither did i 😄 the man crush sent it to me

carolinevilleneuve @cassievilleneuve YOU WENT ON A DATE!?

cassievilleneuve IT WASN'T A DATE

y/n l/n liar 😆

mclaren

liked by danielricciardo, landonorris, and 390,986 others

mclaren Live footage of @landonorris lying straight to our face after going on a date and consuming his weight in sugar.

view all 889 comments...

alllyyyssson ehem eXcUsE ME!? LANDO WENT ON A DATE!?

cecelewis ADMIN TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW

jazzyruiz admin rlly thought they could slip the "lando went on a date" at the beginning of the caption and we wouldn't notice 😭

landosleni my husband is cheating on me!?!?!

landonorris IT WASN'T A DATE

mclaren Sure it wasn't, buddy 😛

danielricciardo why you lying

neonorangepapaya LMAO dragggg him daniel!

y/n l/n ✓ 2m

Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit Melbourne, Australia

"Are you sure this is even a good idea?" Y/N bit her lip nervously, letting the hometown hero - Daniel Ricciardo - drag her down the paddock.

"Bit too late for second thoughts now, isn't it?" Daniel quipped, nodding his head at a passing mechanic.

"I'm not having second thoughts, I just... he didn't even invite me here."

"Which is the whole point of a surprise," Daniel pointed out. He turned back to look at her briefly, "By the way, where's your friend?"

At that, Y/N giggled, "With Lando. Those two have been joined at the hip ever since he picked us up from the airport."

"So it was a date!" Daniel crowed triumphantly.

"Obviously!" Y/N snickered. "What else could it have been?"

"He was telling everyone you were there too after the McLaren admin made that post."

Y/N scoffed, "Now, that's a lie! I was dead asleep in our hotel room. Cassie snuck out and I didn't find out until I woke up and saw that Lando sent me that picture, saying she was in good hands."

"I'm not surprised. I wouldn't want to be caught dead on a date with Lando either." Daniel nodded, mock thoughtfully.

Y/N giggled again, "I don't think that's why she didn't tell me."

He hummed, but refrained from saying anything else as they reached the Ferrari garage, bustling as it was with mechanics, engineers, and strategists.

Y/N came to a full stop as he called out, "Oi! Frenchman! Over here!"

An accented voice yelled back, "I'm Monegasque!", as Charles Leclerc emerged from the sea of red, clad in his own scarlet racing gear.

"Same thing," Daniel grinned, but Charles' attention was no longer on him.

"Y/N?" He blurted out in shock.

Y/N lifted a hand nervously and waved, "Hi?"

Charles stood there, staring at her like he'd seen a ghost, until someone behind him shoved him forward and he snapped out of his reverie.

"Uh, hi! Hi!" He laughed, hovering in front of her uncertainly. "What are you doing here?"

"Lando and Daniel invited me," Y/N bit her lip, cheeks reddening. "They, um- we thought it might be a nice surprise."

He didn't say anything for a moment, but just as she was getting ready to backtrack, his face broke out into a beaming smile and he pulled her into a half-hug - an uncertain one, the kind you give someone if you know them, but you don't know them enough to give them a full hug.

"Welcome to Ferrari," he stated loudly as camera flashes went off, pictures and videos recording the moment that would go viral on Twitter and Instagram for the entirety of that day. "The best team on the grid!"

tag list: @1655clean, @norwayxo, @thecubanator2, @theendofthematerialgworl, @c-losur3, @lightdragonrayne

#ferrari #charles leclerc #f1 #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc smau #charles leclerc social media au #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #f1 fanfic #lando norris #mclaren #mclaren f1

[sunkissed-zegras]

headcannons of you being a media girl for the team and KK constantly annoying you and pulling you with her to make tiktoks

you cannot tell me that kk wouldn’t be all up in that camera

“welcome to the kk arnold show-“

“ KK GIMME MY DAMN CAMERA!”

𝐔𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍 𝐖𝐁𝐁 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐑!𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

─ warnings | nothing but light banter, pretty much nothing else?

─ taglist | @xocherishxo @iienstein @yazmunson @euphternal and here's a link to my taglist if anyone would like to join!!

─ ev's notes | so instead of like media girl hc's, i'm gonna do manager, it's basically the same thing except manager kinda does everything, it's not limited to photos and social media. it's BASICALLY the same just more of an umbrella term LOL, i hope y'all enjoyed!

you've been the manager for the women's bb team since freshman year and let's just say it's SO chaotic but very rewarding

and yes, you're so right

kk would force you to be in the videos and you're all like force smiling, looking like you're being held hostage

everyone in the comments are SCREECHING cus your answers are always so hilarious and they all love you

"who has the best music taste on the team OTHER THAN YOU?" "other than me?????" "yeah.." "no one, i have the best one"

but people love you sm

i feel like they'd make compilations of you interacting with the team (in specifically the tiktoks bc they're funny af)

eventually people coin the term... "y/n and her toddlers"

you're like the mom of the team (obviously cus ur the manager) but like in more ways than just one

like the freshman first start to open up to you, every comes to you for advice, etc etc

they all just ADORE you

cus who wouldn't?

since you're in charge of the social medias, you FEED the paige bueckers girlies

you take so many pictures of our girl and everyone on tiktok loves u for it

on the buses to games, oh god bless u

especially the really long car rides, everyone will do anything but sleep when the only thing you're tryna do is sleep

LIKE EVERYTHING, they will bring cases of redbull bc they swearrrrr it's team bonding

(they just wanna shit talk everyone they know)

they drag you into everything, especially like if two (or multiple) of the girls are having problems bc you usually know how to deal with them

they adore you yes, but they also fear the fuck outta you

so you make them sit down and talk it out (with you + any seniors at the time to make sure they actually do) then BOOM it's fixed

again, you're like their mom

here's a little snippet of what it's like being their manager 😗

──

"Hey y'all, welcome back to the KK Arnold show! Today we're gonna go interview the mysterious Y/N," KK shouted as she looked at the camera with a smile, beginning to walk to the sidelines of the empty court. She gestured to keep walking until they eventually reach you.

You looked up to meet the camera with a confused smile as you setup your camera. KK couldn't help but let out a laugh, causing you to shake your head in amusement.

"Everyone wanted to have an interview with you, how do you feel about that?" KK finally got out after she stopped laughing, unable to maintain a straight face at your confused expression.

You laughed softly, adjusting the camera before responding, "Uh... well you know, it's part of the job."

KK shook her head dramatically as the camera zooms in on her face, "She hates you guys, Y/N is a D1 hater-"

"No, oh my god shut up!" You laughed as KK gave you a mock glare. "I love you guys."

"How do you feel about the edits?" KK held in her laugh as she glanced back at you then the camera, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Of... Paige?"

KK shook her head, "No, of you."

"There are edits of me?" You couldn't but laugh as you shook your head, taking a seat on the bench as you finished up setting up your film camera.

"Yeah, the people are going feral." KK smirked, clearly enjoying your reaction. "Oh don't act like you haven't seen them, we send them to you on the groupchat."

You glared at KK before she bursted out laughing, putting up her hands in surrender. "Bro, leave me alone."

"No, you signed up for this when you became manager." KK joked as you held in your laugh with a thin-lipped scowl, pretending to be annoyed.

Before you could respond, Paige and Nika walked out to the court and KK waved them over. "Guys, Y/N's being a hater again."

"Aw, be nice to the freshman, Y/N." Paige joked as she joined you on the bench. KK sent her a glare as you and Paige laughed, Nika joining you two on the bench with a grin.

You shot KK a playful glare, though the corners of your lips couldn't help but twitch upwards. " Yeah, freshman privileges only go so far, KK. Don't push your luck."

"Bro," KK sighed exasperatedly as all three of you laughing. "Anyways back to the interview, how do you feel about the Paige edits?"

You and Paige glanced at each other before Paige began laughing. "Actually, as an veteran-edit watcher, they're really good. I don't know about the audios though, they're not very cordial."

"Oh my god, Y/N watched the KK Arnold show confirmed?" KK gasped as laughed loudly, joined by Nika and Paige.

"Bro, I recorded that video."

KK's smile dropped as she dramatically side eyed the camera and gestured toward her neck. "Cut the cameras, cut the damn cameras."

The camera didn't cut, it zoomed on all three of you laughing loudly. KK tried to maintain a serious expression before she sighed dramatically, "the haters are gonna keep hating."

"Facebook ass quote," Paige mumbled as you began laughing even harder, feeling your stomach beginning to hurt as tears began to build in your eyes.

"Oh you really wanna play with me right now," KK joked as she stormed toward you and Paige as the camera cut dramatically.

↳ make sure to check out my navigation or masterlist if you enjoyed! any interaction is greatly appreciated !

↳ thank you for reading all the way through, as always ♡

#wcbb x reader #wcbb #uconn #uconn wbb #uconn huskies #uconn women’s basketball #paige bueckers #nika muhl #kk arnold #ice brady #nika muhl x reader #paige bueckers x reader #ncaa women’s basketball #ncaaw #uconn wbb manager ★

[valsdelulucorner]

Malleus head cannons<3

Malleus is isolated a lot due to his status and his reputation. He is the next ruler of the Briar valley, one of the most powerful mages in all of the land, of course people who have heard of him would be intimidated. When he met you, he was surprised to find out you had no idea who he was, so he took this to his advantage. It was refreshing to just talk with someone freely that wasn't Lillia and his family, having fun with someone who wasn't afraid of saying what's on their mind.

When you found out Tsunotaro actually Malleus draconia, he was quite surprised to find you still treating him like how you did before. He was glad to still have a friend after his identity was discovered by you, it was so refreshing to have someone treat him like a friend and not the next prince of briar valley

I love the idea that Malleus doesn't really know how to use a phone, and the only reason he got a phone was to talk with you and his Diasomnia family. He will randomly use you as google, sending random questions to you such as; "different gargoyle types?" "how to make friends?" "what do humans like to do for fun?" "Does Yuu like Gargoyles?" "Malleus, this isnt google" "How to google"

Malleus sneaks into ramshackle sometimes when he wants to see you, easily walking through the front door or going through one of the broken walls that Crowley refused to fix (I'm so generous my ass). He sometimes scares you when he sneaks in, his footsteps barely make any noise so if your cooking or studying with grim, he can just walk up behind you and scare you. He doesn't mean to but he finds it amusing how you jump

If you invite him over for a sleepover or a study date at ramshackle, he will be ecstatic! He's never had a sleepover with a friend before so he will do research on human sleepovers, even asking Lillia for advice and knowledge about this. He will show up with his sleeping bag, bag of clothes, and even some snacks Lillia said humans like best during sleepovers. If its a study date and a sleepover, he will help you with anything you need while you eat snacks and chill in your pjamas. Grim will sit on your lap or your shoulders the entire time, getting abit protective of you while you and Malleus talk the night away.

He had the best time with you! When will be the next sleep over child of man? He had alot of fun just hanging out with you, getting to know you better and getting a better learning about what humans do during these sleep overs. He will 100% bring some games over for you guys to play, teaching you about the games he played in the briar valley while you teach him about games you played from your world. He would even let you do his hair if you ask nicely, it was such a nice break for him to just be around you and not have to worry about his duties for a night. He will defiantly ask you over for a sleepover at Diasomnia, just be careful not to run into sebek

Imagine if the boys didn't find out that you both were friends after Vil overblotted but during a lunch break or during class. While sitting with your group, Malleus comes over to your table and sits down with you, happily starting a conversation with you while everyone on and around your table freaks out about how your so calm. Or during a Gym class, malleus spots you out on the field struggling with your broom so he comes over and helps you, teaching you how to properly ride it while the students around you fly all the way to the other side of the field, shocked your speaking so freely with the Diasomnia dorm head

If you guys ever start dating, he will be very happy but nervous. God forbid you tell the first years, Sebek would be screaming in your ear for a few hours straight while Ace shakes your shoulders. Deuce and epel will be worried, asking if you know what your in for and jack will just be quietly staring at you with worry in the background, trying to tune out the shrill screams of grim. If Malleus randomly appears behind you while this goes down, ace immediately lets you go and scatters back with the rest while Sebek will be asking Malleus if he's sure he wants to be with a human like you. He and sebek are in for a long talk after that

If you guys get to the point where you both physically affectionate, he loves to lay his head in your lap while you play with his hair, softly talking about his day, gargoyles, his family, his history and everything with you. He enjoys these quite moments with you when you both can just be yourselves with each other, holding each other softly while you both speak about anything that comes to mind

If you come to twisted wonderland as a sculptor or a artist, lord he can see the wedding. He absolutely loves watching you work and seeing the fruits of your labor come to fruition. He will ask you if you can make gargoyles for him, even if you are a beginner artist he will still love to see you make one. If you make him a miny gargoyle keychain out of clay or resin, he will love you forever. He will never be without his little keychain, he keeps it in perfect condition and will be absolutely devastated if it breaks

Will call you "my thorn" "Child of man" "darling" "my muse" "my rose"

When I tell you this man would get so protective over you is a understatement, he will use his status to scare off anyone that tries to bully you or make a move on you. Someone confesses to you? Suddenly they are avoiding you like the plague but don't worry child of man, he is there to wipe your tears. Someone is bullying you? Don't question why they moved schools, maybe they weren't cut out for such a prestigious school

"I know you, i walked with you once apon a dream" "I know you, that gleam in your eyes is so familiar agleam"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I Love malleus but this was the first time I've ever written for him so this was a lot more difficult then I expected. He was alot of fun to write for though, please excuse my writing, im still trying to improve

Who should I do next?

#valsdelulucorner #twst wonderland #disney twst #twst #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland fanart #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x yuu #twst yuu #twst x reader #twst x you #twst x yuu #twst x y/n #twst x mc #twst imagines #twst headcanons #twst diasomnia #twst malleus draconia #malleyuu #twst malleus #malleus x yuu #twst malleus x reader

[chrissv4mp]

say you were tryna' make me laugh .❤️‍🩹

summary: matt lets it slip that he loves you and you try to tell him that he can't, that he needs to take it back.

pairing: fem!reader × bsf!matt sturniolo

warnings: angst, maybe some vulgar language, high-school au, etc.

a/n: PLEASEE i need billies new album now💔🙏 also this might be a potential series....👀👀

matt was your best friend, followed you every where you went and did everything you asked of him. you guys may have gotten into fights sometimes, but only small arguments.

he was perfect, and your other friends had always encouraged you to ask him out. but you never did, because you knew that he never really talked about that sort of stuff because of his social media presence.

and maybe it was also because you were a little scared to, because you saw yourself as unlovable and you couldn't bear to see the look of disgust on your bestfriends face if he rejected you.

you wouldn't be able to be around him anymore if he rejected you, it would be so awkward and wouldn't be at all how it used to be. your connection just wouldn't have that same spark.

"hey, dummy," matts voice erupted from behind you, and you turned to look over at him.

he took a seat next to yours at the small table in the corner of the cafeteria, smiling over at you as he set his tray down.

"hi, idiot," you laughed, cringing as you took a look at the cafeteria food, "seriously, you're gonna get food poisoning from that one day."

matt just shrugged, "well, i got to have a full stomach throughout the day or else i'll be tired during practice. and frankly, i do not want to get yelled at by coach williams."

he continued to grab the apple off his tray, biting into it.

"he's so scary, i don't know how you can even look him in the eyes." you said, and mayt chuckled.

"yeah, well, i've dealt with some scary people in the past."

you knew that was true, and you knew for a fact that he was talking about his ex-girlfriend, summer. she was such a bitch, always controlling matt and the things he did.

nodding, you went back to simple chatter like complaining about how your classes are way too long, and how the teachers don't care about their students.

both of you still remember when matt laughed at those jokes you made about the teachers back when he was dating summer. he still laughed even at his lowest times, even when he felt like dying.

his smile looked so sincere to others, yet only you could tell what was going on in his head, those bad thoughts. his anxiety had only gotten worse when him and summer became a thing.

whereas matt could never tell what was going on behind those eyes. you always kept your composure, making sure nobody got to you.

"catch!" that was the thing you had heard just before a football went flying in your direction.

it hit you straight in the face, and you stumbled to the ground, groaning as you held your cheek.

matt had watched as the boy who threw the ball begin to laugh, and his hands clenched into fists before rushing to your aid.

"y/n, are you okay?" he muttered, grabbing your hand and helping you back on your feet.

smiling at the boy, you nodded, "mhm, just my cheek hurts a little."

matt couldn't contain himself anymore, it was always that same dipshit who picked on you. this was his final straw.

leaving your side, matt went to grab the football before rushing over to the guy. before he could even comprehend what was happening, matt threw the ball at his face.

the tip of the football hit his nose, hard. with how close matt was and how much force he had put into the throw, it definitely broke the guy's nose.

"what the fuck?!" he whined, holding his bloodied nose as he shut his eyes tight.

you could only stand there, hands clasped over your mouth in shock at what matt had just done. he was never the type to have sudden outbursts like this, and he surely wasn't the type to confront someone.

"maybe fight someone of your gender next time, bud." matt smiled fakely, shoving the boys shoulder before returning to your side.

he hadn't said a word to you, he just interlaced your arms and began walking somewhere else in the courtyard.

when the two of you had settled in a more quiet area under a tree, matt finally spoke, "i'm sorry,"

"i guess i was just fed up with him always picking on you. and i mean, seriously, what fucking guy messes with a girl?" he scoffed, rubbing his knee as he looked down.

your lips curved into a small smile as you reached over to grab his hand. you slid your fingers between his, and they fit almost perfectly.

matt's face went pink, and he looked away with a smile.

"i know you just want to keep me safe matt, it's okay. don't be sorry." you said quietly, running your thumb over the top of his hand.

the sky was a soft orange, some pink blending in as the mountains covered the rest of it.

matt and yourself were sitting on a blanket at the park, waiting until it was dark to see the stars.

it was something the two of you did occasionally, and yet you never got bored of it. your conversations were always new and the stars had always seemed to be arranged differently.

matt couldn't help but get lost in the sight of the sun setting, his mind going completely blank.

"you never see a sunset in your life?" you joked quietly, and matt laughed as he looked over at you.

"be quiet," his hand ran over the soft fabric of the blanket, and suddenly all he could think about was you.

the sun set faster than you thought, and soon enough the stars were out. you and matt lay side by side as you stare up at the night sky, fixated on each and every little detail.

the silence was comforting and sweet, the feeling of matt being present beside you made you feel like there was some sense of security surrounding the two of you.

matt's lips parted, and he turned his head to state at you for a little. you seemed so lost in thought, so peaceful like this.

"what ya thinkin' about?" matt whispered, a smile creeping onto his face.

you shrugged before turning to look him in the eyes, "if i said it, it'd weird you out."

his smile became wider, and he turned his head to look back at the stars, "eh, i think if i told you what i was thinking about right now, you'd quite literally slap me."

chuckling, you continued to stare at matt, eyes flickering over all his features.

"really?" matt nodded in response, laughing.

"yep, now c'mon, your thought can't seriously be that bad. tell me, please?" he sounded like a little kid when he begged like this, and that was one of the reasons you loved being his friend.

you dragged your hands down your face, sighing exaggeratedly loud, "fine,"

"i was thinking about how different things would be if we hadn't met." you said, voice soft.

matt nodded, letting a few moments of silence pass by before speaking, "yeah? well, you'd probably be alone woth no joy in your life."

"shut up!" you laughed, punching his shoulder gently.

matt laughed, rolling onto his side to look at you closer.

"now it's your turn, kid." you muttered, smiling at him.

silence enveloped you two again, and this time you could feel a twinge of tension in the air between your two bodies.

he twiddled with his thumbs as his smile faded. he had been full of courage all day and now he couldn't even look at you.

was it really worth risking the friendship?

what if you hadn't felt the same way, what if you didn't love him.

he couldn't even believe the words that came out of his mouth next. they always say sooner is better than later, i guess.

"i love you, y/n." he said quickly, and you almost figured he was joking.

well, until you saw that look in his eyes. the look that he gave summer at the beginning of their relationship.

fuck.

your smile faded, and you just stared at the boy beside you.

matt tensed, his eyes going anywhere but to your own as he let you process what he said.

"you're lying," was all you could say at the moment.

matt's eyes snapped up to yours at the... accusation? he couldn't tell if it was a question or if you were accusing him.

he shook his head anyway, muttering a quiet disagreement, "i'm not."

"yes, you are, matthew. you can't actually love me," you raised your voice, sitting up as you stared down at him with wide eyes.

the brunette boy sat up next, tears welling in his eyes.

crying wasn't like him, he never cried.

you looked away before speaking up more, "take it back, please,"

he was just joking, he was surely gonna say he was trying to make you laugh. right?

no, he was never the type of guy to joke about stuff like this. he was in love with you, really.

matt shook his head again, sniffling as he wiped his eyes, "no, y/n. it's true."

"no, no. you didn't mean to say 'i love you'," your mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts.

why were you even making this such a big deal, it wasn't like you didn't love him as well. it's just that... you didn't want to.

you didn't want to love him because you knew how things like this went. the breakup would be 10x as hard as a normal one.

now you were both crying, and you hadn't even realized until a tear drop hit your bare knee.

"i'm sorry, fuck, i didn't mean to make you cry." matt apologized, his hands shaky as he reached out for you.

you couldn't help but fall into his arms, sobbing on his shoulder as you tightly wrapped your arms around his waist.

he muttered reassuring things as he rubbed your back, his voice sometimes cracking as he also cried.

this wasn't how the night was supposed to go, you weren't supposed to end up red-eyed in matt's arms.

you were supposed to be staring at the stars and talking nonsense.

now nothing was normal, you could never escape the fact that you loved him now.

"i have to go," you said, pulling away from his embrace to pack up your things.

matt stayed silent, deciding that was the best thing to do right now.

you left without another word, and it wasn't until you were halfway across the park that matt noticed you left your blanket.

his lips parted as he let out a quiet sob. lying back down on the blanket, he cried into it.

it was like you were hugging him, and just for a second he believed that you might be able to forgive him.

but then it faded as doubts came crashing into his mind again.

"i hate you," he muttered to himself, punching the grass once before wrapping himself back up in your blanket.

"i hate you, i hate you, i fucking hate you!" he yelled, sobbing.

. . .

tags: @cindylcuwho @55sturn @ryli3sworld @mattsneezing @voidghsts @films4sturni @h3arts4harry @freshloveee @raysmayhem-72 @imtalkinnonsense @chrissturnswife @cheriematt @mattyb4dominicans @freshloveforthefit

#Spotify #sturniolo #nick sturniolo #chris sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo imagine #sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x reader #matt x reader #matt sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo smut #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x you #chris smut #nick sturniolo x you #nick sturniolo x reader #nicolas x reader #nick x reader

[spellbooking]

let me preface this by saying: you are allowed to have whatever pairing/ship you want. this post is not about saying you can’t nor should you feel bad for having them!

I will always use my blog as a means to advocate and boost queer material. But lately I’ve noticed the lack of engagement on queer tav x companion pairings. And it feels like it’s getting worse. It’s discouraging as a queer man who mainly ships men with men that a gif/art of Gale (or any other male companion) with a masc!/nonbinary tav will get 30 notes (if that!) in an hour but a headcanon or gif of a male companion with a fem! presenting tav will receive much more attention (100s of notes) within that same time period. For such an inclusive game, me and a couple other queer folks have come forward to say how excluded we are starting to feel. As someone who has a pansexual male partner, it is heartbreaking to see. I’m putting these in bullet points because it’s easier for me

• Gale, Wyll, Astarion and Halsin are NOT straight

• Gale, Wyll, Astarion and Halsin are PANSEXUAL

• Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Karlach, and Minthara are NOT straight

• Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Karlach, and Minthara are PANSEXUAL

• Just because a fem!Tav is paired with a male companion does not mean she is automatically straight. Stop erasing sexuality or assuming.

• Just because a masc!Tav is paired with a female companion does not mean he is automatically straight (I can relate to this one as I have a pansexual masc!Tav who is paired with SH and his sexuality gets swept under the rug)

The reluctance to engage with queer tav x companion media is discouraging and so disappointing. I know people will write g/n blurbs but honestly, upon reading them, they seem to weigh heavily towards AFAB individuals (if it’s about a male companion). I’ve seen blurbs be titled as g/n just to have an allude to AFAB individuals at the end. Queer pairings are much less likely to receive reblogs or engagement in this space and it’s baffling.

And honestly it’s even worse for nonbinary and trans individuals. You guys truly get the short end of the stick and I’m so so sorry. You don’t deserve that. But I am so tired of groups of people trying to claim these companions or claim what their “preference” is. Gale and Wyll are not “ladies men”. They’re just MEN. Even when these companions are headcanoned as parents, it’s conveniently forgotten that two men and two women can be parents. Stop claiming these characters as if they only prefer one gender. I literally made a gif of astarion kissing my male tav and it felt taboo because I RARELY see gifs of him kissing or engaging romantically with masc!Tavs.

The heteronormativity with these companions is frustrating. Us queer individuals are FRUSTRATED. I see it. I hear about it. People vent to me about it! The fact that people are so quick to give attention to fem!Tav x male companion or masc!Tav x fem companion but are so reluctant or give no attention to queer pairings is disheartening and I cannot sit by and not acknowledge this any longer. A lot of the fandom will preach equality and equal engagement but won’t even give said engagement? Please engage with queer content. Please reblog queer tav content. Please stop assuming sexualities of tavs. Please stop erasing sexualities of these characters. Stop excluding queer tav pairings from these narratives! All we’re asking for is equal engagement, please. We are tired, we are frustrated, please give us a voice too. And if you believe the companions cannot be with someone other than explicitly of the opposite gender, please block me.

#tay.txt #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #halsin silverbough #astarion ancunin #wyll ravengard #fandom critical #baldurs gate 3 #astarion #Halsin

[maxknightley]

hey man listen, im sure you just didnt know because hes just a funny haha tweets guy but dril is literally an outspoken nazi on twitter and has made mulitple tweets with nazi dogwhistles and literally responded to someone going "its not a joke, i fucking hate jews". like theres screenshots and posts and stuff about it out there and im sure you could dig through his twit. none of my posts about this ever get picked up because no one wants to admit the internet funnyman is a bad guy but hes like. a literal actual nazi. take that as you will

disclaimer for my followers: do not start shit with this person. I swear to fucking god. be cool.

not to be rude but I looked this up:

on twitter's website, where I found nothing;

on twitter's mobile app, where I also found nothing;

on DuckDuckGo, where I found nothing except the "(((keebler elves)))" tweet, which I think you could reasonably argue was in poor taste but hardly seems like a sincere endorsement of fascist beliefs;

and on Google, where I again found nothing except the "(((keebler elves)))" tweet and people talking about the keebler elves tweet

so, like, with all due respect I think you're either misremembering something / conflating him with someone else, or someone is fucking with you. I'm genuinely not sure what else this could be referring to, other than his recent slew of tweets mocking the nation-state of Israel, which - speaking as an antizionist Jew - I think are good and funny

the main reason I'm posting a response to this ask at all is because I get asks like this a lot. like, every couple months at this point. but usually they're not about dril, who 1. barely uses this website and barely ever has, and 2. has bigger things to worry about! usually they're about Some Trans Woman who I may never have even fucking heard of. I've gotten asks calling latina trans women "white" and accusing them of being turbo-racist because they Disagreed With Someone One Time. I've gotten asks trying to convince me that a woman I've never spoken to is a sexual predator based on literally zero evidence of any kind. and it gets fucking tiresome. okay? it's really, really fucking tiresome

so I figure I'll post this one because it's illustrative, and because it won't stir up shit around someone who might actually get hurt by it. please stop doing this. please stop sending me completely unsupported asks about how such-and-such is a terrible person.

at the bare fucking minimum send me actual concrete Posts that I can look at, because then I can actually judge for myself whether it's something worth getting upset about. otherwise there's basically a 10% chance I look into it, find nothing tangible, and shrug, and a 90% chance it goes straight into the trash.

[unoriginal-and-dumb]

anyone else ever feel bad for ur characters cuz I do even though it is. A drawing. I made Aaron with 3 A’s but the a is silent and invisible months ago but then I made another character and then some guy who’s name rhymes with binfected came around and I straight up gave the base design to him (cuz I think it’s cool and I CAN DO WHAT I WANT AAAAAAAH)

Anyway im just bringing it up cuz it’s kinda neat that people are showing interest in him, cuz he really is just like a mascot for me and my account and I think that’s funny

he was also originally made so I could practice animation and I did that like 3 times before I got bored

[piratekane]

what r some of ur fav kacy moments?

a FANTASTIC question. here's a top ten in no particular order:

the parking lot scene. kate is not the bad guy! let's kiss under the parking lot lights! they did not go get that beer and i love that for them.

that one scene in season 3 where kate is bringing ernie mochi and lucy says that kate is looking fantastic today. something about that whole interaction just... got me. the grin on lucy's face. the way kate smiles back over her shoulder. pls tell me about your acting choices and why they made that 15 second scene endearing.

first date reenactment. those freakin dorks, i swear to god. kate's "well, i don't seem like a lot of things" lives rent-free in my head.

OF COURSE the scene in 3x04 where they have to dip into that storeroom to avoid the bad guy and they're, like, 2 inches away from each other. maybe i've watched that a few times.

the first kiss in the pilot. i'm split equally between the original airing with the smash cut kiss and the extended scene because i originally thought that lucy initiated the kiss, but finding out that kate was the one... mind-blowing.

the 2x01 episode kisses (plural!) because i love domestic kacy. i could write about that allllll day. i was not expecting lucy to straight up (ha) get into kate's lap at the outro of that episode. sigh. that was such an opening episode.

kate waiting at lucy's desk in 1x10 after the whole finger business. i just loved how kate said she was more comfortable with things at dinner and then just casually sits at lucy's desk waiting for her to come back (which is why 1x11 is so fucking crushing).

the scene in that episode in season 2 where lucy is helping Joe, the sailor with the memory problem. and joe elbows her in the jaw and lucy and kate are in the kitchen in the office and kate is snippy because she's worried. i'm not mad kate says, definitely not happy.

and speaking of lucy being beat up... the scene in 1x07 (? maybe) where lucy agrees that secrets can be fun and kate ducks her head and says something like, "want to tell me more about secerts" or whatever (i am not searching for the lingo, sorry). like, goodness. kate. relax.

the 'move in' scene where kate is so far behind on the conversation and she's just blinking as lucy explodes. i love a good "why are we fighting?" "we're not!" in shouty volumes and then the break in the tension where they realize they're definitely arguing scene. and they did this one perfectly.

okay, that was a nice little walk through my mind. now i need to go watch all these scenes (shoutout to the people who upload their scenes to youtube, they're the real ones).

#kacy #ncis: hawai'i #this was fun to think about thank you anon #now i want to go watch them and write them and i am a little sad again but i will go do something else #maybe read

[jq37]

Are we sure Sandralynn wasn't cursed with like. Shit taste?

It's def a real mixed bag, though I think besides Bobby it's more just wild choices than straight up bad choices.

Bobby Dawn: Regular Freak. Liar, Frumpy, Wrong. Cheated on his wife and then ruined another woman's life over it. This is not a a ranking so I'm not giving him a score but I almost wish it was so I could give him a comically low number. Actually, there aren't any rules here. I still can. Negative infinity and kick rocks. If I was Sandra Lynn's friend I would be *begging* for her to love herself (or at least have a better sense of self preservation) and RUN GIRL.

Gilear Faeth: Gilear was a successful, hot elf before his loser energy kicked in because of his curse. Wasn't he like a diplomat or something? Like, Gilear now is a loveable loser but Gilear then was probably kind of a catch. And hell, Fabian's mom likes loser Gilear and she's a pretty hot commodity herself. As Sandra Lynn's friend I would be doing cartwheels if she moved on from Bobby to be with Gilear. 1000% improvement. And, for what it's worth, so is loser Gilear. Most guys would be frankly.

Gorthalax: Def seems a bit reactionary to go from a cleric of Sol to one of Sol's fallen angels turned devils. But Gorthalax is a nice guy from what we've seen and as a devil of gluttony he prob can conjure up some killer date night food. I think that if I could get over the shock of him being a MAJOR DEVIL, as Sandra Lynn's friend, I could warm to the idea. And he's not Bobby Dawn so instant improvement. However, as there was infidelity involved this would be another GIRL WHAT? reaction from me. But again, less about the guy himself, more about the decision to cheat.

Jawbone: OK so the thing about Jawbone is that I think he's great and a super good person and he's Brennan's semi-self insert so of course I love him. But he would also be an insane person to know IRL. Like, the stories he tells so casually. I think I'd be like, uh are you sure about this one? But he seems to have at least mostly chilled out now that he's working with kids and I think he's a really great guy. There's maybe a risk of contracting Lycanthropy but I'm sure they're using whatever protection you use for that. Solid guy as long as you're cool with his past.

Garthy: When Garthy was introduced, 80% of the fandom was instantly thirsting over them so objectively, "Garthy is hot" is a pretty mainstream opinion. And even if you (like myself) were in the 20% of people not thirsting over them, they're still very clearly a good person between raising Ayda and being super into self care (I loved the scene with them and Mercer's char in PoL). Also they're just really cool conceptually. So again, very normal person for Sandra Lynn to wanna hook up with. The problem, once again, is the infidelity. Especially because Jawbone was willing to have an open relationship! He closed the relationship for her! She took an L here for no reason!

So, to recap: shitty guy, good guy (who was cursed), devil (who is a good guy* and also an affair partner), good guy (with a wild past), and hot pirate (who is a good person* and also an affair partner).

*I don't remember if they knew Sandra Lynn was in a relationship when they were hooking up with her and am not factoring that into my judgement.

Besides Bobby Dawn, the rest of her choices were pretty OK (unless I'm forgetting stuff). Wild and with no obvious connecting thread--she absolutely has a rogue's gallery to rival Batman's--but it seems like the problems she had with relationships came down more to stuff other than, "She picked an objectively bad guy."

She really has the most inconsistent taste ever. I can't even begin to categorize what her type is. Gilear and Garthy should never been on any list together besides, "NPCs with G names."

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #a-salty-alto #asks

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

saw ur vents abt dungeon meishi and while I haven’t read the series yet or watched the anime I have seen bits and pieces and already saw the blowup scene where Toshiro attacks Laois and like. even I with zero context didn’t totally hate him. It sucks majorly that it had to happen but like. Toshiro is going through his own shit and plenty of other characters ALSO don’t like Laois! I think people just see that scene and project the amount of times that’s happened to them with someone in real life, which like. I get it. I’m autistic and reading that scene hit like a gut punch bc it was something I had experienced directly in real life: trying to be friends with someone, thinking you are friends, only for them to reveal one day that they couldn’t stand you and hated your guts from day one. You wonder why the fuck they pretended and let you hurt even worse than outright initial rejection. You wonder why they’d put themselves through enduring you. It makes you feel like you can’t trust anyone, makes you feel like utter shit. I 100% get why it bothers people. But you can’t project real life people you experienced onto this character that does not align at all except for this one moment. Also knowing about the author, she probably put that in on purpose as commentary for how autistics in Japan generally have to go through shit like this bc of the way their social culture is. She’s made plenty of autistic commentaries before, I doubt she stuck that scene in there for no good reason. The fact that Toshiro kept quiet and didn’t say anything until he couldn’t take it anymore is VERY indicative to me of the ways Japan’s typical social system is a struggle on all sides. Not to say these are problems unique to Japan, but the nuance needs to be understood. Toshiro isn’t being a dick just for the sake of it. I want to read it sometime so I can better understand the guy, but I don’t want to hate him based on one scene where he was an asshole. Laois is an asshole plenty of times himself, being very overtly written as autistic doesn’t absolve him from the responsibilities of being an adult.

TLDR: People tend to infantilize Laois and demonize Toshiro, which comes down to the prejudices preconceived for both of them: people see Laois, as an autistic man, as an innocent sweet guy who needs to be protected. They see Toshiro, as an Asian man, as someone who should be “polite and honorable” or whatever and are appalled when he acts like a fallible human being and not some appropriation of a fictional romanticized samurai. I understand feeling betrayed and angry seeing a character be a genuine asshole about something (social expectation does not completely absolve Toshiro of his own antagonizations however much of a reason he had) but when it’s so damn one sided, and especially in a series where almost NO one is without complete asshole qualities that round them out, I find it kind of gross that people hate on him for that. Anyway. Just wanted to send a message of support and understanding. Hopefully after I read more I can offer more analysis to corroborate with you on.

100% CORRECT thank you anon

i also understand the people who are sympathizing with laios bc that scene is very easy to relate to for many autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people (i also got a cold sweat when i was watching it bc. like. having someone you thought was a friend straight up tell you there are parts of your behavior that they can't stand is one of the worst things to experience of all time, ESPECIALLY if you were only showing that behavior around them bc you thought they were your friend and you trusted them) but it's so frustrating seeing so many people have such shallow opinions about toshiro bc of it. im on hands and knees begging people to consider the characters in three dimensions and/or develop better reading comprehension because like!! toshiro's official meeting with laios's new group literally leads with 'oh his name is actually toshiro and we never knew bc our leader had a misunderstanding and microaggressed him and he was too polite to correct him' laios is not an innocent party here!! he is not an innocent uwu autistic baby he's a grown adult man with responsibilities, in that whole time he was partied with toshiro he never learned his real name!! plus using toshiro's crush on falin as a reason to hate him, falin's adolescence was spent in a school and a social setting where she was expected to mask + her being a girl also means she is expected to mask by default -> she is better at masking than laios so why are people saying that toshiro hates laios for the same traits in falin bc clearly not?? also saw one person saying 'he only likes falin because she's hot' NO HE DOES NOT HE WOULD NOT RISK HIS LIFE HEALTH AND RETAINERS IN A DUNGEON ON A FOREIGN CONTINENT FOR THE SAKE OF A WOMAN HE ONLY THOUGHT WAS SEXY!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DUNMESHI FANS THINK WITH YOUR BRAAIN

the whole fight he had with laios where laios points out that their party is more serious about finding falin and resolving everything also drives me nuts because i've seen at least one take saying that toshiro doesn't care about falin as much as team laios because of this. which yes the fact that team laios understands the importance of health in pursuit of a goal is very very important but for many cases in east asian culture (and actually any culture with emphasis on capitalism and economic growth) productivity will get valued above all else which leads to neglect of personal health, i.e: what toshiro was doing. so this is just a clown take to begin with

also interesting to me that almost every character in dunmeshi thus far has demonstrated some kind of racial bias/misconceptions (i.e: chilchuck about elves, senshi about half-foots, etcetera etcetera) and laios and falin are no exception. race and racial differences and conflict and coexistence is also one of the underlying themes in dungeon meshi, with the elves of the west being considered a major issue to many dungeon-goers and the mayor hating dwarves and having to contend with those elves, and then marcille's motive for studying black magic and even thistle's motive for being the dungeon keeper. so it's real fucking ironic that the fans are really quick and happy to demote toshiro to 'asshole side character who is bullying our autistic rep' instead of, you know, using nuance and thinking about it

tldr; dungeon meshi has great commentary on what it's like as an autistic person in society. but dungeon meshi fans are too quick to write off toshiro as an asshole japanese guy who is ableist and getting in the way of their white woman yuri, therefore helping to promote this website's enduring legacy as the piss-poor reading comprehension website

#dungeon meshi #asks #i thought this might happen when i heard dunmeshi was getting an anime adaptation but that doesnt make me feel better abt being right #i watched the ep last night with some friends and one of the first things out of their mouth during the laios-toshiro fight was 'i hate him #and i get it bc both of us had bad experiences being neurodivergent in a shitty american suburbia town #but also like. damn girl!! already???

[olderthannetfic]

Guys, some of the comments on that porn addiction ask sound like run of the mill fundies, but others sound like they just don't know what the concept actually is. People who push the porn addiction agenda and sell "therapy" for it aren't talking about a maladaptive coping mechanism, they're talking about an (imaginary) *addiction*.

The concept that pornography is dangerously addictive is rooted in other likes from straight, culturally Christian society; namely, that men are incapable of controlling their sexual urges, that women do not experience sexual pleasure (or at least not as much as men do), and that something pleasureable must have "redeeming qualities" or else it is inherently sinful ("sin" is rebranded as secular morality or as mental health when it escapes containment).

A lot of the rhetoric is sex shaming shit you might recognise in it's repackaged form when antis spout it.

It is also incredibly gender essentialist, and ignores the existence of both homosexuality and transgender identities. Except, of course, when someone wants to pathologize these identities as being caused by or being symptoms of porn addictions. You're not a trans woman, you're a straight cis man who was harmed by looking at pictures of naked people! If you just accept that you have an addiction, you can come to Jesus and turn back into a normal healthy man again!

"Porn addiction" is also a convenient lie for keeping sex education away from young people. If porn is inherently dangerous, and depictions of "alternative" sexuality are inherently pornographic, then of course you can't let a 16 year old know that gay sex exists! He'll get addicted and currupted by Satan and next thing you know your perfect Christian son is a faggot tranny freak!

--

[comradekatara]

How much do I need to pay for some more aang and suki shenanigans?

same girl!!! their friendship (that is almost entirely hypothetical and mostly exists in my head) is soo important to me i just know they’re best friends. like obviously the fact that suki is close with appa and momo already signifies a lot about the nature of their relationship, but they barely interact throughout the show, which makes sense considering that suki is mostly there to supplement sokka’s character and all her other interactions with the gaang are fairly limited (katara and suki friendship though….. also deeply important. to me). but as the most emotionally healthy, stable, self-possessed, and just straight up cool members of the gaang, i just know they’d get along like a house on fire.

i think suki would pretty quickly come to see aang as a little brother figure the same way sokka does, and suki would be the big sister he never had in return. and they definitely get into all kinds of little adventures together after the war, like aang telling suki about the cactus juice incident and suki immediately being like “omg we NEED to try that (don’t tell sokka and katara)”, or going around helping rebuild villages and relocate displaced peoples together, or pranking each other in increasingly crazier ways.

oh yes the aang and suki prank war is very real (toph and katara have a concurrent prank war going on of course; zuko who is far too sensitive & gullible, and sokka who is far too anxious, refuse to be caught in the crosshairs of either of these conflicts). it starts at the western air temple and ends when both of them are dead. everyone on kyoshi island genuinely worships aang like a god and so they think suki is absolutely fucking insane for putting cactus juice in his smoothie right before he’s supposed to deliver a big speech, but she’s just like “no it’s gonna be so fucking funny, just trust me.” (and it is.)

the “putting a “snake” in your sleeping bag and humiliating you in front of your almost boyfriend and his hot dad -> reading katara a really bad poem and then claiming that aang wrote it for her -> loosening the bedframe in your bedroom on ember island so that it crashes during sex (the point at which aang learned NEVER to make sokka collateral damage in these escapades) -> making the whole gaang sit through a colonialist propaganda play just because you know it’ll piss aang off -> putting hot sauce in your red face paint so that it stings and burns your eyelids so bad throughout the entirety of zuko’s coronation day -> nearly causing an international incident because you straight up endangered the life of the avatar” pipeline is so fucking real you guys.

and for what it’s worth, a lot of people assume that aang and suki actually hate each other, and that’s why they’re so invested in this prank war. but they love each other deeply, and that’s evident whenever they’re not in the middle of concocting a nefarious revenge plot, like when they go for long walks together, or just sit and chill outside, or cook together, or any other one of the many other activities they enjoy in each other’s company. they don’t hold grudges either. the pranking is fun for them because they’re both secure enough in themselves to understand that it’s being done out a shared sense of joy and whimsy, and not out of any desire to genuinely antagonize the other. to be fair, sometimes their pranks do actually go too far in various ways, but again, no hard feelings. it’s just a testament to the skill of the pranker, and an invitation for the other to step up their game.

#professordino #asks #aang #suki #aang&suki #go thru that tag for more aang&suki shenaningans. btw #they are so important to me #as are all big sister little brother relationships…… for no reason in particular . of course